Critical Mass
by Rfalzar
Summary: You know, I always thought the idea of living in the Mass Effect universe would be fun. After being sent there because of a freak lab accident, I'm starting to reevaluate that idea... if I can survive long enough that is. It's not exactly a cake-walk fighting off an ancient race of genocidal robots after all. SI, rated M for language, violence, various pairings.
1. Prologue

**A/N: Hey guys, this is my first SI and first Fic period, so I hope you guys like it. A shout out to Herr Wozzeck for inspiring me to write this and helping me with the whole process, and a shout out to CuHnadian as well for helping work out the kinks in the story.**

**And before we get started just a general disclaimer: Mass Effect is not owned by me. All of it's characters, setting, etc are owned by BioWare. Any songs/games/movies referenced are also not owned by me but by their respective artist/creator/director.**

**Enjoy.**

**Critical Mass**

**Prologue: When Lightning Strikes**

I've recently come to a realization that opened my eyes about...well...everything, mainly that life is short, fleeting, and above all, fragile.

I mean think about it. We're essentially bags of meat and water. That's it. That's all we are as humans. Doesn't matter if you believe in a higher power or not, we're just an intricate meat bag, a fleshy water balloon, and if the slightest thing goes wrong, BAM, dead.

Heart beats a little too fast or out of normal rhythm? Dead. Blood vessel bursts in your brain? Dead. Bullet wound? Stab wound? Blunt force trauma? Dead, dead, and dead. Or maybe you're in my current situation where Death isn't just knocking, but basically kicking down my door. I think my case might be unique though

It's just too bad that I came to this conclusion with my own fragile existence coming to its end. In all seriousness, this was not the way I was expecting to die. Far from it in fact. Like not even in the top five, if there's even such a thing as the top five ways to die. More like top five ways I expected to die. I was hoping painlessly in my sleep, but few people are that lucky. If I couldn't go like that I wanted something so ironic that my funeral wouldn't be as sad because of it. Never in a million years did I think this would happen though, mostly because I didn't even think it was real.

I'm currently laying on the ground, half-dazed from the explosion that blew me over here, with a Geth Hopper on top of me effectively pinning me to the ground. And no this isn't a friendly "Oh I'm so happy you're okay!" fly on top of me hug of joy. I wish it was. First person to ever hug a Geth? Well after the Morning War at least? Yeah I'll take that title! Unfortunately I can't claim it just yet. This is more one of those opportunistic, "I'm just gonna go ahead and kill you while you're down and dazed, ok?" hugs.

I mean c'mon. I didn't even make it one mission with this team. Really? I knew I was no combat specialist or anything, but that's really damn depressing. I've had experience shooting guns and what not, but I was kinda hoping I'd live through these missions. I'm not ready to die! I mean I knew it was a possibility, but everyone else always comes out scott free so why can't I? Guess it's just one more thing to add to my terrible karma... I mean I always thought the universe hated me for some unknown reason, so it's not entirely strange. Maybe it was just my face, I don't know.

But that was _MY _universe. Now I have two that hate me only this one went so far as to hire a hit-man to solve the problem.

Ah fuck, that sniper shot is less than half a foot away. I can't avoid this! I'm pinned to the damn ground! Shepard and her team are in no position to help with this because they're equally dazed from that explosion. I look back up at my own personal reaper, every detail on the metal monstrosity standing out in clear detail during my final seconds: giant flashlight head, metal head and shoulders, oddly skin-like substance interconnecting it all. The mass accelerator barrel next to its head whirring louder and glowing brighter...

Aaaannnnd of course the life flashbacks come right now, right on cue... Well let's get this over with.

Let's skip the boring stuff, get some personal facts outta the way, and go straight into how the hell I got into a world that should only be a video game. First off, my name's Rick and I reside in the good ole' US of A. Michigan to be exact. Lived there my entire life. Right before all this crazy shit happened I was just a regular college student like anyone else. Junior status, still hoping to break into the medical profession, and a proud member of a Greek organization.

The year's 2007. Mass Effect has been released. Where am I? Not playing it. Didn't even hear about it until late 2008, maybe even early 2009. Bought it, played it, loved it. I should probably mention I was, and still am, a pretty big gaming nerd. And a sci-fi nerd. Let's not forget Medieval nerd. Fuck it, I'll say it: pretty much just a nerd in general, but that's part of what people loved about me. People knew it and didn't care. It was who I was and everyone thought it was fun.

Dunno why exactly, but there was always something about games that captivated me. I loved movies and books, but unlike those, games had the ability to put me in the middle of the action, to make me interact with the story being told rather than just sitting there and watching it happen or reading about events unfolding. That fact made them stand out to me more, and Mass Effect of all games made player interaction key. I got to choose everything that happened and I found that amazing.

Congratulations BioWare, you earned a new fanboy. Stuck with the series ever since and it quickly became my favorite series, but I have yet to beat the third. Just finished Palaven.

Personal shit done.

Back on track in 2012: it was right during an average day of me sitting at home after class, just playing some games when I received the call that would change everything for me. I had some friends contracted to work on new projects that would innovate technology for everyone. I may only be twenty, but I have older friends in important positions. Let's call him Josh. We met through his cousin, who was a mutual friend and we clicked fairly quickly. The rest is history as they say.

Josh was fascinated by all things technological, so naturally when he was contracted he worked on teleportation science with other techs around his lab in his spare time. He had a dream to make the impossible possible and the fictional real. Honestly this didn't surprise me in the least. Technology was somewhat of passion for him and I'm pretty sure Josh was solely responsible for that massive blackout that hit northwestern America in 2003. He was 12 at the time.

Anyhow, I just beat Palaven when my phone started ringing. I answered it and Josh is yelling stuff about coming down to his lab and what not because they had made some sorta breakthrough with their side project. Naturally I had to go see what it was all about. I know this sounds like the beginning of a cheesy, sci-fi B-movie but it's not. It actually happened. Just bear with me here.

Fast forward a few hours and I'm at his facility, and damn this place is fancy. It's a big modernized building that almost looks like a planetarium, and there's expensive equipment everywhere and yet it's all somehow organized. I wish I could accurately describe what all of the things were, but I have _no_ idea what half of the stuff is so I can't. I looked around, noting a small cluttered corner. Remember me saying that it was really organized in this building? Well, I lied. Everything was organized except Josh's station. The clutter in that area, along with the music blaring and loud celebration gave him away instantly. He never was the most organized guy but we both believed that procrastination and disorganization are just signs of intelligence. In his case he was 100% correct. "Better make my way over to him..." I thought to myself.

I walked over there to see a few people in lab coats, smiling, congratulating each other, and drinking what appeared to be champagne. And there Josh was in the middle of it all; I could pick him out of any crowd based solely on his voice, longish brown hair, and chinstrap.

"Josh! Looks like you guys are starting the celebration a-" I said. Or tried to say that is before I almost slipped and busted my head on some weird machine. Luckily I managed to catch myself on some other weird machine that looked like a narrow white pillar that was about chest high where there was a small, flat, round platform. From that platform was a neck that went out, back, and up at a 45 degree angle until it hooked back in, kinda like a blocky question mark. Right above the platform I managed to balance myself on was this strange see through thing with a bunch of wires and circuitry that came to a head that almost looked like a portal gun with the black extension and three claws coming out of it.

"Woah watch yourself bud, we just finished perfecting the shit you fell on." I heard Josh say.

"Yea well maybe you should clean up here once in a while. You know, make the place presentable, prevent freak lab accidents from happening, that sorta thing." I retorted. "What the fuck did I slip in anyway? And please tell me its not radioactive. The last thing I need is to leave here with a third nipple or something. Or tumors. I'd love to not have some of those."

"Don't worry about it. It's just some champagne from when I opened the bottle," He assured me while chuckling. "Kinda messy opening that stuff y'know? Good news is you're safe, the machine isn't broken, and I'm about to win a Nobel Prize. I'm ecstatic! We finally made a breakthrough in this teleportation tech and it could change everything we know about travel."

"Well you're just gonna have to give a demonstration now aren't you? Not gonna lie I've never really been fully convinced that what you do is even real science. More like wishful thinking in my opinion," I said with a smirk.

"Had you said that any other day before now, those would've been fighting words..." said Josh as he started tinkering with some objects. "Fortunately for me, I get to shove those words right back down your throat. See that apple over there?" He asked while pointing to a desk a short distance away. There was an apple on a white platform under what looked like an exact replica of the thing I balanced myself on. "Well check this out." With that said, he pressed a button, and what looked like lighting starting coursing down the claws of the portal gun thingy, eventually all meeting at a point and shooting downward, which engulfed the apple. Next thing I know I hear a crack behind me which was rather startling, so I turned around to see lightning shoot out of the machine I stumbled over. Suddenly an apple appears. I turned back around to see that it wasn't just an apple, it was _the_ apple from across the room.

I was speechless, just standing there with my mouth hanging open. I... I didn't even think something like that was possible... and by all means it shouldn't be...

While I was standing there, most likely drooling at this point, I hear Josh say "Told ya I'd make you eat those words."

"Yea... yea you did! How the... When... Why...? This shouldn't even be possible!" I replied.

"Up until today I might've been in the same boat." Josh stated. "I was hoping otherwise but definitely doubtful. Starting to lose faith in my own project but then this happened. I won't go into the details, but you saw the results yourself. We've successfully transported a few objects back and forth between the two right now, however we haven't done any testing on living things yet. Or anything greater than this distance which is around 30ish feet. Honestly, it's been kinda fun zapping shit back and forth with all the hard work we've put into this. I don't know why we can't use it for a distance greater than this, but with this breakthrough it's only a matter of time before I can send it to somewhere like the moon! Wanna closer look?"

"You can bet your ass I do!" I exclaimed as I walked over to the apple. "Fire this thing up! And pour me some champagne! I wanna watch it disappear up close." I told him while walking closer to where the apple just appeared.

I stood right in front of the device, eyes glued to it. "Start the damn thing!" I said growing impatient. Right after that I heard a click followed by a "What the hell?" That wasn't good. I turned to see Josh press the button again... and nothing happened. With a frustrated look, he pressed it again. And again. And a few more times after that. "So much for not breaking it..." I said.

"Here lemme check something..." I heard Josh mumble while laying down to look under the control center. "...had this problem before...wire jostled loose...aaaannnnnd yep. Looks like you knocked it loose when you took that tumble earlier. Just need to plug this back in and-" Josh didn't get to finish that sentence. He was interrupted by the lightning stuff literally erupting from the portal like node. Guess all the times he pressed the button backed it up, or super charged it, or... something. But it's not shooting at the apple. It's shooting at the champagne puddle on the floor. Which I just so happen to be standing in. Again.

Fucking great right?

The next thing I know, I'm no longer in the room I was just in. Instead I seem to be floating in some limbo-like version of the room I was just in, like legit out of body experience floating. Minus being out of body. My body isn't there. Weird. Well on the bright side, Josh will have data on a live test. And I should just be going to the other node right...?

Or not...Why is everything smaller? And why does it feel like I'm floating upwards? Oh great, instead of going to the other node I'm flying up, into the ceiling, at a faster speed than I would have hoped for... Oh crap, I'm gonna be a tiny smear on the ceiling. Maybe if I close my eyes it'll be over before I know it...

Or so I thought. I went straight through the ceiling. Like it wasn't even there, or maybe I'm the one who's not there. Maybe these teleportation thingys are like a cell phone? Going up to something before going to the receiving end? Josh never really mentioned how this works so I guess it's a possibility. I keep staring down at the ground watching as everything shrinks and notice how everything seems insignificant from this height.

Then something interrupted my train of thought. What's that noise...? Kinda sounds like an airplane. Not just sounds like, it _is_ an airplane. Not that I'm afraid of heights or anything, but I get a little wary when I'm in the air at what should be cruising altitude for planes. Apparently while lost in thought I went higher, and I've been picking up speed at an exponential rate, hurtling towards the upper atmosphere and out into space, but if I can pass through walls hopefully I won't need oxygen? I'm over-thinking it, just go with the flow.

I suddenly find myself rocketing through space, no oxygen required apparently. I keep going through the beautiful black void that most people can only dream of entering. Guess all you need is a freak lab accident to be space-bound. Earth is way behind me now, and the stars I pass become white blurs everywhere around me. Honestly it'd be fascinating if I weren't scared shitless and confused as hell, kinda like the time I accidentally drifted in my car. After what seemed like ten minutes it got darker, and as I went on, it progressively got wayyy darker.

On the bright side, all this tumbling through the cosmos gave me some thinking time. Am I still alive? Is this what death is like? I guess I'll find that out whenever I get wherever I'm going. More importantly, why do I not need oxygen? Why have I not imploded or exploded or whatever from the vacuum? Why was I not incinerated upon leaving orbit? Why is this all so confusing? I swear if I ever see Josh again, he's gonna have a lot to answer for.

Stars ceased to inhabit the space around me, all light disappearing until the only thing surrounding me was pure, unfeeling darkness. I can't really tell if I'm moving anymore. No light to judge movement by, but it feels like I stopped... I honestly can't tell. Honestly I'm just surprised I haven't had a seizure at this point with the amount of information and conflicting emotions running through me. On one hand I'm still scared as all hell. On the other, I'm kinda awestruck as to whats going on

Out of nowhere I see a tiny, pulsing, purple dot directly in front of me. Growing brighter and bigger as time moves on. I don't know if I'm moving towards it or it's moving towards me but it's growing bigger in size. The bigger it gets the more I start to realize it's some kind of cosmic cloud, mainly black in composition with purple lightning seeming to pulse throughout that lit up the black, cloud-like part around it. Almost like a thunderstorm in space.

Before I could take more time to appreciate the intricacies of what was in front of me, it suddenly dispersed, leaving no trace whatsoever, and then immediately reformed, but not in front of me. It surrounded me. A small sphere of blackness started encircling me and I was too afraid to touch it. Don't want to disturb anything or mess with forces beyond my knowledge. It stayed surrounding me for a decent amount of time, almost judging me, if an inanimate object can judge that is.

Next thing I know, the cloud was pulsing and swirling around me, causing a slight tingling sensation throughout my entire body that wasn't entirely unpleasant but at the same time not entirely welcome. The tingling abruptly turned into a shocking feeling which then transformed into an intense pain that I could feel throughout my entire body, and I could do nothing to defend myself from it. The only thing I could do was writhe in agony as it continued to overload my senses, every nerve firing, screaming, pleading to make it end.

While this was happening I barely noticed the cloud getting smaller, snaking towards me in tiny tendrils, undoubtedly the cause of this intense pain. Finally unable to deal with the agony any longer, I blacked out. I saw pieces of what happened next but nothing in its entirety: the cloud shrinking more, the cloud ultimately disappearing, the blur of stars around me slowly returning, a planet resembling Earth in the distance ahead of me, getting larger as I got closer to it, the environment becoming clear, and finally darkness.

**A/N: Yes, kinda cliffhanger on the first chapter. No worries however as Chapter 1 is already typed up, just a matter of fine-tuning it to my liking. Just a heads up to readers, any feedback or criticism is more than welcome. I gladly accept anything that could improve this overall.**

**Rfalzar signing out.**


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: Trouble in Paradise**

_Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep..._

Ungh... Really right now? Stop beeping...stupid alarm. Maybe if I just ignore it, it'll stop. That's how they work right? Snooze, off, or ignore? I'll just go back to sleep...

Or not because this thing apparently never shuts off. Damn that was a weird dream. It was so vivid, too. Almost like I was actually there. Easily the most painful dream I've ever experienced...if a painful dream can actually exist. Ah, well better shut that stupid alarm off and start my day.

I don't even need to open my eyes for this...should be right around here on my dresser. Or here. Wonderful. I have crazy dreams now and alarm clocks that can apparently move on its own. So annoying, where the fu-...

Ok this isn't my room. This is NOT my fucking room! Why is everything all metal and futuristic? What the fuck is going on?! I should be at home, in my comfy bed, with a wooden dresser, right fucking there!

I started frantically looking around the room trying to gather my surroundings in a desperate attempt to figure out where exactly I was, only to look down and notice wires connected to me.

"Noooooo, no, no, no, no, no! I don't know who you are or why these are hooked up to me, but I want nothing to do with this. My organs are staying inside of me thank you, and in nooooo way am I about to be sewn to two other people. Not now. Not ever," I said to myself as I ripped off the wires, and carefully removed any needles.

Next order of business is finding my way out of whatever this room is. Except that there seems to be no door. This isn't even a room, it's a box! Scratch that, it's worse. This is a cage. All that's around me is metal walls. That's it. Cold metal walls, weird looking hospital bed, a small locker in the corner, and all these odd scanners and machines surrounding it. I'm trapped. I'm gonna die. Shit, balls, fuck, *insert random expletives here*.

"Ok, ok, calm down," I said to myself while sitting down in the corner, bringing my knees up to my chest, hands around my legs. There has to be a rational explanation to this. Think Rick, think!

Ok all I remember is that weird painful dream. What did I do before that...? I remember playing Mass Effect 3 and beating Palaven. Then...then I got a call from Josh. About some breakthrough with...with his teleportation stuff...

Of course! I'm at his lab! I got hit by that weird lightning stuff and must've lost consciousness. That totally explains the pain I was feeling and the weird dream. The lightning messed with my brain. And I'm here in what must be a hospital ward of his facility. Well that's a relief.

I sat there for a few more minutes, happy to have finally figured out what was going on...at least until I heard that annoying fucking beeping again. Only now that beep is a solid high pitched squeal. "Seriously?! What. The. Fuck?! What is beeping?!" I yelled.

"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to calm down," I heard from the opposite side of the room. The wall had slid open revealing two people, a man and a woman, standing there apprehensively. They were dressed strangely, but they most definitely looked like doctors, although they weren't wearing any uniforms I've ever seen. I know I've seen these before, but I just can't seem to place where.

"False alarm, patient is fine. He just ripped off everything attached to him. However he seems disoriented," said the woman into a radio. "Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to lie back down on the bed. We need to perform some tests now that you're conscious."

"Now that I'm conscious? How long have I been out?" I asked

"Just about the better half of the week. You'll have plenty of time for questions after we finish our tests. We ran some before, but only some baseline scans to make sure that you weren't injured. Besides a few scrapes and burns you were fine. We needed you to be awake to perform anything else. Just lay down," she continued. Seeing as how I didn't really have a choice, I complied.

"Thank you. Ok, now let's see what we got here... Start scans," she commanded though to what I wasn't sure. Then the bed and all the devices around it sprang to life, sending strange beams at me that moved from my head to my toe. "I can't say I'm too fond of all these strange... beam... things around me. Last time I was around sciency objects I didn't know, it didn't quite end so well..." I told her.

"Well I can assure you that these are simple medical scans," she replied. "No harm will be done. Though how these qualify as strange I couldn't tell you. This is standard medical equipment."

"Standard my ass. I've never seen this in hospitals. And what with the teleportation equipment in the other part of the facility putting me here in the first place, I feel like you could understand me being wary." I told her.

"Sir, these-"

"No stop calling me sir. My name is Rick. Where's Josh? He'll tell you what's going on."

"Sir- I mean Rick- as I was saying, this equipment is standard in any care facility across the universe, there is nobody named Josh here on this part of the colony, and we don't have teleportation technology. The closest thing we have to that is FTL travel and the mass relays."

She turned away and started talking, "Scans commencing for patient Rick O'Connor, 6'2", 200 pounds, brownish black hair short-ish medium length, brown eyes... Ok initial scans show nothing wrong. Every thing normal. Body in good condition, decent weight, muscle tone normal, heart normal, brain scans normal, although patient exhibits lapses in memory..."

I let her continue, because God knows I wasn't paying attention to anything she said after mass relays. Nothing she said made sense. I had to be in Josh's lab still...unless that wasn't just a dream. Unless that was, in fact, real, but I have no idea how that could be real. FTL travel? Mass relays? Those don't exist where I come from, those only exist in...

Mass Effect...

Holy shit. Now I know where I've seen rooms, equipment, and clothes like this before. All this stuff is from Mass Effect. But how? I thought that was just a dream! Maybe it teleported me to a new time? This is far too real to be just a dream. Did all the times Josh press that stupid button send me here? It must've broken some dimensional barrier or something. I don't know. The only person who can answer that would be Josh, and he's not here...

And what did she mean ideal body conditions? I definitely wasn't in perfect shape the last time I checked! I wasn't out of shape, but I wasn't close to being toned. Looking down I noticed that I was now, not ripped or anything, there was just more muscle definition. I was more a powerlifter, not somebody who focused on making his muscles show, but they were always there, just not visible like they now semi were. Only explanation for this had to be that my "dream" was actually real. It would explain the intense pain that cloud thing caused. Stop thinking about it. All this thinking is making my head hurt. Time to figure out what exactly is going on...

"Rick... are you alright? You've been awfully quiet."

"Yea... yea I'm fine. You know...you're right..." I said, my nerves making themselves known in my voice, "I do seem to have trouble remembering some things. Where are we for one? And what year is it? How did I get here?"

"This is a Human colony on the edge of the Terminus Systems known as Eden Prime. The year is 2183. As to how you got here, we were hoping you could tell us. We were working on a research base on a dig site, looking for any valuable artifacts when we found an intact, working, Prothean beacon. As soon as we found this beacon we saw a flash of light and a loud explosion about half a mile away in a field..."

She brought out a data pad and started typing on it and then continued to talk, "We thought the beacon had triggered some new technology yet to be discovered, but when we got there, all we saw was you in the middle of a small crater Rick. We found you in outdated clothes, all of which are in your locker over there, as well as a new set for you. We happened to see your I.D. as well. It says you're from Earth, Michigan to be exact, but unfortunately we have no records of anyone with your exact name in our databases here, even those who may have visited on shuttles. More importantly all your possessions were incredibly outdated, and your I.D. said you were born in the 1990's. That's impossible seeing as how that was close to 200 years ago. So who are you exactly?"

I know all that was important and that all this is overwhelming, but a few of the details stood out and signaled some warning bells, prompting only one question: "Is there an Alliance vessel coming here to procure the beacon?" I asked.

"Yes but that's top level clear-" the man chimed in from the background, speaking for the first time, but he never really got to finish his sentence as I cut him off.

"Wonderful!" I shouted as oh-shit instincts kicked in for survival, "Listen, I don't have time to explain but know this: you and everyone else on the colony is in grave danger. Don't ask, I can't tell. But what I can do is try and save your lives until help arrives, but you'll have to trus-" I didn't get to finish my sentence as a horrifying noise went off in the distance. I could tell it was far away but at the same time it felt as if it were right next to me. I knew that sound all too well: the ominous horn announcing that a reaper is nearby, in this case Sovereign. I really was in the Mass effect world. Worry about that later. Focus on not getting killed by Geth now.

I could tell everyone in the room with me was terrified at this sound, any doubt that may have shown in their faces about my warning instantly vanished. They didn't know what it was but they were smart enough to put things together.

"Well that saves me a lot of hassle," I mumbled while starting to dress, putting on the new space age clothes while taking any possessions out of the pockets of my old, mainly an ipod, some headphones, my wallet, and my cell phone. "Now listen, I can save us, _if _ you can get us to the shipping warehouses. Are they far from here, and can you lead me there?"

"They're about a 20 minute walk from our location," the woman said, taking charge as the man was still clutching at his head from the sound Sovereign emitted, "and I can lead you there. But on one condition: when and if we're safe, you have a lot of explaining to do."

"Deal," I replied. "Now get us outta here."

The un-named woman led us outside, and damn is this place beautiful: minimal structures, beautiful skies, rolling fields of green. Definitely deserving of the title of Eden Prime. I never thought I'd be able to live anywhere but the city. I mean, I love places away from the city, but I never thought I could actually live there. It's too far away from civilization for me. But this place is different. I could see myself here. There's something about it that's just so serene that couldn't be conveyed in the game. Well it would be serene if the sky wasn't blood red and it wasn't being invaded by a reaper and its Geth armada.

Ok, enough sight seeing, back to running for my life, and right on cue as if we didn't know we were in danger, a Geth drop-ship flew by overhead.

"What was that thing? I've never seen anything like it!" the woman asked.

"That would be a Geth drop-ship, lady and gent, and it's Filled with - you guessed it - Geth!" I replied.

"But that's impossible! Geth haven't been seen outside of the Perseus Veil since the end of the Morning War!" She said.

"Yea, well they're here now," I retorted, "and I suggest moving over talking before we all end up dead. If I may make a suggestion? Take an out of the way path. We don't need armed enemies discovering us."

With that, she lead us down the slope to the warehouse, leading us behind some of the shacks that had been set up and behind some trees leading to the warehouse. As we moved along we watched in horror as squads of Geth indiscriminately murdered every colonist they came across. Nobody said anything, however, either due to fear of being caught or the fact that there was nothing to be said. We were about three quarters of the way there when a small group of Geth, maybe about 2 or 3 of them, got in the way.

"Of course!" I whispered. "Now what do we do? We can't go out there without getting gunned down. The closest cover to hide behind is far enough away to be spotted, and any distraction we try to make will just get us killed..." And then like an answer to my prayers, a single unnaturally loud gunshot sounded in the distance, pulling the squad's attention and causing them to move away from us.

"Well there couldn't have been a better time for that to happen, lead the way..." I said to two people next to me. As we made our way in silence hoping not to get caught, our goal almost in sight, I remembered something: the gunshot that just saved our lives ended somebody else's. That was Saren killing Nihlus, which means we should be getting to the warehouse just before Shepard if my estimates are right and assuming the game timing is accurate. Guess we'll find out soon enough.

The rest of the journey went smoothly, no Geth in the immediate vicinity to hinder our progress. At least until we got to the warehouse itself. Geth were swarming the front of the warehouse just like in the game. Well looks like I'm gonna be psychic from now on. Not sure if that's a gift knowing what I do, or a curse...but now's not the time to think about that. More important things are on my plate right now...like getting into this fucking building.

"Going in the front is not an option. We'll be killed before we make it within 50 feet of the walkway up there," I observed. "There has to be another way in there. If we stay out here we're screwed. In the bad way. The _really_ bad way."

"Thank you for that. Stating the obvious and an attempt at comedy. _That's_ what we need right now," retorted the woman. "Anyhow there should be a back entrance, but it's not exactly common knowledge."

"Meaning what?" I asked. "You mean like some super secret entrance?"

"Kinda..." she stated, hesitation clear in her voice. "See my brother-in-law and husband work here..." she continued as she started walking along the back of the building, feeling the walls for something. "...and they kind of smuggle some shipments for themselves. Normally I detest the sort of thing, but right now this could save our lives...here it is," And with that the wall slid open, revealing a small, isolated room with a few crates in it, a single lightbulb lighting the room. Well the futuristic equivalent of a lightbulb.

"Not another step!" we heard from the corner of the room, all of us turning to see the source of the voice greeting us with a pistol in our faces. "Who are you? And how di-...Anna? Is that you?"

"Powell! It's so great to see you're alright!" She said embracing him, but for some reason he wasn't quite as enthusiastic. "Have you heard from Stan? Is he alright? I know he was working today...Why isn't he in here?"

Hey! It's Powell! The coward Ashley almost killed when she found out he was hiding.

Powell let go of her and held her shoulders, looking her straight in the eyes, sadness clear in his own, and said "I'm sorry Anna...He...He didn't make it..."

"No...no how could you?! You saved yourself and yet you couldn't save him?!" she said slowly walking away as tears started flowing down her cheeks. I assumed Stan must have been her husband.

"Anna please, you'll give us away. I know you're upset. You don't think I am? He was my fucking brother," Powell stammered out. "Believe me, if there was anything I could have done for him, I would have done it in a heartbeat. I was back here already when the attack started...napping. Stan was out front covering for me while I grabbed some shut-eye. Next thing I know, I'm awake, there were guns firing, bullets ricocheting all over the warehouse. I went to go check it out and saw Stan running back here, but he fell down at the end of the crates we use to hide the entrance on the inside of the warehouse. I went to go help him up...and then I...I saw the blood. And the unfeeling look in his eyes...like he wasn't there. And then I came back here. Waiting for this nightmare to end. I'm sorry..."

This being said, Anna leaned against the wall, slowly sliding to the ground, her body shaking with sobs the entire time. There was nothing to say. We all sat or stood there, nobody daring to break the silence that permeated the room.

We waited there for what seemed like forever, and that's when I realized that something was wrong. Shepard and crew should've been here by now. There should've been a huge firefight outside. Why weren't they here? If they're not here then...shit... the bombs. The damn bombs! Quick, think, think, think!

Ok... not the greatest idea but I can't wait here forever. If I do something I could end up dead, but on the other hand not doing something will guarantee it. Let's do this.

"Powell, was it?" I asked, even though I knew it was. I'd seen him before from the game.

"Yes," He replied, seeming to notice me for the first time since entering the room. "Who are you? This section of the colony isn't big, and I know everybody here. But I've never seen you before. Where did you come from?"

"My name is Rick, and there's more important things going on here than my origins. I need a favor from you."

"I'm going to stop you right there," Powell interrupted. "You aren't getting _shit_ from me until you tell me who you are and how you got here."

"Look I told you my name, and I'm telling you there are bigger things than where I ca-"

"Tell me why you're here! Did you bring these... these _monsters_ here? Are _you_ the reason this peaceful colony is being attacked? Because I swear to God if you're the reason my brother died I _will _kill you!"

There's only a few things I truly _hate_: being interrupted, hypocrisy, ignorance, and false accusations. Powell just did two of those.

"Look asshole," I started, "I know you're grieving right now, and I now this whole situation is a shock to you, but you can not pin this fucking tragedy on me! If I was responsible for this, do you honestly think anyone in this fucking room would be alive right now? If I had planned this attack do you think I would've had to sneak the _entire damn_ way over here? Do you think I would have warned these people with me about this attack if it was _my_ doing?" I paused, never breaking eye contact with Powell.

Silence.

"That's what I thought. Now, if you'll let me speak, you'd see that I'm trying to save your ass, so will you help me? Or are you just gonna sit here on your ass while more innocents die?"

"Before I do anything," Powell started, his voice a little less accusatory and more hurt than before, "I have to ask you something first. You said you warned them about the attack? How did you know this was going to happen?"

Great...didn't account for that question. Ok...think on your feet Rick...you can do this. Convincing cover story. Need a convincing cover story so they don't think I'm insane...

"Well? How did you know?" Powell pushed.

"Well you see..." I said pausing a little to think and buy some time, "I was actually...traveling. With my family. On the way here as a matter of fact. We were...going to make a new life here. See if we could live on this colony, you know? On the way over here we were attacked by the same ships you see outside. I was the only one to make it to an escape pod, and that escape pod crashed into the field over by the Prothean beacon. You can see why I might not want to talk about it. Satisfied?" I asked while trying to sound convincing.

"Good enough," was his answer. "Sorry about your family. Now what was this favor?"

"I know you're a smuggler, but I really don't care. What I do care about is what you've been smuggling. If I know how these machines act the way I think I do, or at least the way I expect them to, they aren't just going to leave. They're going to destroy any trace of them being here, and this section of the colony along with it. That's what happened to our ship. I don't know why the Alliance team that showed up hasn't arrived at this warehouse yet, but I'm not just gonna sit here waiting for the next nasty surprise the Geth have waiting for us. Do you have any fire-arms, grenades, or shield generators back here?"

"Well..." he started as he looked through some crates, "I have a few pistols here, no grenades, and about 3 shield generators."

"Great. Give em to me. How do these generators work exactly?" I asked

"All you do," Powell said as he brought one over to me, "is stick one on you, press this button, and you're in business. Now these aren't military quality, but they're still really good. If you get hit with too many shots, it'll overload. Stop taking fire, and they'll recharge. Just pay attention to how much fire you've taken; you don't have a helmet with a HUD to tell you after all. Simple enough right? And I'm assuming you want one of these too right?" he asked handing me a pistol.

"You could say that," I replied. "It's been a while since I used one of these, anyone wanna give me a run through on the basics?"

"I can help you with that," piped up the man who had previously said nothing the entire time I was with him. Turns out his name was Shawn and he had worked security before. He gave me a run down on the gun: what did what, how to know if it's about to overheat, and stuff like that.

After he was done, I walked over to the inner warehouse entrance in this room, shields up and pistol ready, and turned to them and said "I don't know about you guys, but I'm going out there and giving these things a taste of their own medicine," thank God for the gun training I had before I ended up on this forsaken colony, "so is anybody with me? It'll be dangerous and I can't guarantee your survival. I can't even guarantee mine, so I'll understand if you all just stay here."

Shawn was the only one who responded, but even then he didn't say anything. He just walked over to Powell, grabbed a pistol and shield generator of his own, and then walked over to me, simply nodding.

"Good to know I'll have someone watching my back out there," I said putting my hand on his shoulder. "Time to teach the Geth that not all these colonists are helpless..."

We made our way out of the warehouse, but to our surprise there were no Geth outside. If I didn't know any better I would've swore that Shepard had already been through here, but seeing as how I heard no gunfire previously, that was impossible.

"Wonder where all the Geth went?" I asked Shawn. He said nothing, but pointed left to a hill that a few Geth were running up.

Guess that would be Shepard and crew. Geth must be trying to neutralize them. Good luck with that. They're running a little late aren't they? Well let's go make it easier for them once they get here.

"You don't talk much do you?" I asked, looking at Shawn. No response. "Ooooookay then...moving on. I think we should go this way," I said heading to the right of the warehouse. We made it to a downward ramp when we suddenly saw a body in a pool of blue. Nihlus.

"There were aliens on this colony?" I asked, looking at Shawn. Gotta play the part of stranded newcomer after all.

"No," he replied, "Judging from the armor and weapons though, it seems like he's here to help. Must be part of the Alliance group that came here to help take care of the Geth behind us. Let's move forward."

"Right back to business I see. You go ahead, scout the area. I'll catch up in a second. I'm gonna stay here and see if I can learn anything from his omni-tool." Shaun said nothing but walked ahead, pistol at the ready.

Well...I know why he's here. No need to search Nihlus' omni-tool. I was staying behind to see if Shepard would catch up, but I can't even see him at the hill. He needs to get here soon. Or she. I don't know yet. Hopefully those bombs the Geth set up won't go off before he/she gets to us. And hopefully I'll still be alive too.

Well better go catch up to Shawn. I'm reaaaally hoping this doesn't get too outta hand considering we just have pistols...but somebody has more than just pistols. I'm just hoping they show up soon. A few gunshots sounded from Shawn's direction.

I started jogging to back Shawn up, but then I remembered something and spun around on one foot, jogging back to Nihlus' body.

I don't think he'll mind if I use his shotgun for a bit... Thank you assorted Elder Scrolls games for teaching me to loot bodies before moving on. Doubt I'll do it often, but I think these are special circumstances. Anything more than just a pistol will be useful. More gunshots.

Right, off to help Shawn.

**A/N: Hey guys, I told you the next chapter would be up shortly. Expect another update soon because this is half of what I originally had as one chapter. I have a lot written, but as before it's just a matter of working out the kinks. Once I've posted what I have, expect an update roughly every two weeks? I'll push for sooner but no promises.**

**Anyhow, I hope you enjoyed it, I know it's not a lot of action, but that's coming up so bear with me. Again, leave any feedback or criticism in the reviews or a PM.**

**On another note if anybody's a registered Beta who happens to be reading this and would like to help out, I would gladly accept it so PM me.**

**Rfalzar, signing out.**


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: Trouble in Paradise, Pt. 2**

Well, this could have gone A LOT better. We made it to the Tram with little trouble. By the time I caught up to Shawn, he had already taken care of the few Geth that had fired at him.

Then we moved to the tram, and that's what seemed to cause the biggest issue. I knew there would be Geth here, but I guess I just wasn't as prepared for my first firefight as I thought I was. I suck at switching cover, suck at moving forward, and I'm not the best at avoiding damage. My shields were constantly getting taken down, but I guess that's to be expected from a newbie.

What wasn't expected was the relative ease at which we went through the first car. There weren't as many Geth as I remember there being, but they went down fairly easy. The hard part was halfway through car number two, where all the Geth I remember there being at the first one and at the warehouse must have gone to. Now there's ten of them and two of us, which wouldn't be an issue if I was with Shepard. But I'm not. I have civilian issue pistols and civilian issue shields. Oh and no armor. Just another perk I have going for me. Not to mention Shawn is slowly bleeding out next to me, and we have zero medi-gel. He got hit moving over to help me, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna let him die.

I pull out the shotgun I took from Nihlus, and then briefly pop up to aim from behind the bench, I fire seeing the rounds impact against my target's shield followed by the telltale electrical surge of his shields overloading. I fire again, hitting my mark when I see the Geth's arm get torn from his torso, the rest of its body falling soon after. Unfortunately I need to wait for this thing to cool down, so I duck back into cover. Thank God for spending time at the shooting range before this, otherwise I'd be royally fucked at the moment.

"Shawn, how are you holding up?"

"Been better..." he muttered through grit teeth, his hand clamped to his abdomen to help stem the bleeding.

"Just hold in there bud, I'm not letting you die on me." I replied. With that he just pointed in the direction of the Geth. I turned to see one about four feet away from me and closing.

Oh shit. 3 feet.

Do something body! Obey my brain! 2 feet.

I pulled up my shotgun above the cover I was in, staying ducked down with the barrel in the direction of my assailant, and pulled the trigger. I look up to see this white substance covering my gun and upper arm along with a Geth laying around the corner who appeared to be sawed in half, the only thing keeping it together was thick cable on its back which I guess would be the equivalent of its spine.

_Holy shit! _The game was never that graphic. Not that I don't like it. It's actually kinda cool. Not the time to think about that though. I'm _damn_ lucky that my shot was close enough to breach its shields and kill it, but I can't rely on luck to swoop down and kill all these things. Let's see... there's still...8 Geth left between me and my goal. Also, focusing on not getting shot seems like a good idea. I should focus on that.

I pop up from behind cover again to take aim, and right as I fire, I see a hail of accelerator rounds whizz by me and into the small Geth horde in front of me. Well, whadaya know… I guess I can rely on luck for the rest of these Geth.

Seeing as how our semi-sentient enemies were caught off guard, it wasn't long before their shields were down. Rounds started tearing into metal, small spurts of the white, metallic blood painting the floor of the tram. The flash of biotics and assorted tech explosions accompanied the gunfire, making for a deadly combination, and quickly eliminating the threat.

Thank God! I turn around to see three people running towards us, one was clearly male, Kaidan it looked like from what I saw from his face, and one in white and pink armor, Ashley I'm guessing; the third and final was a female, wearing red and black armor with a signature N7 mark on the breastplate and red command stripe down her right arm. Shepard.

"I'm Commander Madison Shepard, Systems Alliance. Are you people alright?"

Yep, there's Jennifer Hale alright. It was hard to tell all her features from behind the helmet, but she appeared to be have pitch black hair in the style of default Shepard possibly, deep blue eyes, and soft facial features not counting the minor scar above and under her right eye, and a deep one half hidden on her neck. Not unattractive in the least, but there was something behind her eyes. I couldn't tell what it was but there was some kind of fire or fierceness behind them. It was almost unnoticeable, but at the same time unmistakable if you caught it. FemShep it is I guess.

"Well… Shawn here took a bullet when he was helping me," I replied. "You guys have any spare medi-gel for him?"

"Of course," Kaidan said as he walked over to help Shawn and applied the medi-gel. "There, that should take care of it. I suggest getting off the tram though. We're heading deeper into what we've heard is enemy occupied territory on the other side of this tram."

"That's great and all, but I'm coming with you," I interjected as Shawn made his way off the tram. "I'm not about to sit around here and do nothing. I saw those things haul off some equipment over here, but I'm not seeing it on here. Whatever it was it didn't look good, and If it's what I think it was, you're gonna need help, trained or not."

"Well Commander, he made it this far. Why not give him a chance?" asked Ashley. Thanks for the support there Chief, didn't exactly think it'd come from you though. "And if there's any truth to what he's saying, an extra pair of hands could be useful. Not to mention an extra gun in our favor."

"True, but he could also hinder us. It's our job to protect civilians, and bringing him with us puts him right in the line of fire. We don't know how adept he is in a combat situation. Yea he made it this far, but we don't know how many Geth he took out and how many the other guy took out. It could end badly Shepard."

"Ok, that's hardly fair," I started, glaring at Kaidan. "I may not have professional training or military grade equipment on me, but you need any help you can get right now. Besides, whether you want me to or not, I'm coming with you guys. Your other option is putting a bullet in my head and tossing me off the edge of this tram. Cause that's the only way you're getting me off this thing." Ok, that may have been a little extreme, but I got my point across. My mouth needs to stop acting without my permission. It always gets me into situations like this.

Wait... why is Shepard looking at me like that? Fuck. Don't tell me she's a renegade, cause I really don't wanna get gunned down by the so-called hero of this galaxy... Stay composed, don't show fear, and don't look away. It shows weakness.

"I like this guy," Shepard piped in with a smirk. "He's got guts. It doesn't look like we're changing his mind, and he seems confident enough. Kaidan you make a good point, but his and Ashley's are better. We weren't exactly prepared to fight a Geth armada and I'll take the extra firepower. But just to be clear..." She paused, looking at me like I was supposed to answer something.

Oh, she wants my name. "Rick. Rick O'Connor."

"Ok, Rick, I'm giving the orders here, and they will be obeyed. If you disobey any order, you are left behind. If you disobey any order that endangers my squad or you so much as try to betray us, I will have no qualms complying with your earlier wishes and vacating your brains from your skull before the Geth get to. Are we clear?"

Gulp…

I stood there, shock evident on my face. Did she really just say that? I assumed she was paragon. Is she a renegade? Paragade maybe? If she was full renegade I would've been shot when I told her to, but if she was full paragon she wouldn't have said what she just did. She must be paragade. I've always liked the thought of a Shepard who chooses the good options but is a badass at the same time. I mean I always thought it was lame to not have a good combination of selflessness and ruthlessness. Every paragon option was like 'stop this guy from shooting this guy' or 'calmly talk down the crazy' and it undermines what Shep can do. On the other hand all the renegade stuff was awesome where she basically does what she wants: kicks somebody out a window, snaps a guy's neck, or shoots someone in the face simply because fuck you, that's why. Now that I see what might be a paragade Shepard in front of me, it's honestly kind of intimidating.

"I _said_, are we clear?" Shepard repeated.

I snapped out of my daze and responded, "Crystal, m'am."

"Don't call me m'am. It's Shepard. And this is Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams and Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko." She said, both of them nodding towards me. "Let's go get this beacon we came here for."

If only it were that easy Shepard...

* * *

We were halfway to the station where the beacon is kept, everyone standing at the edge of the tram with their weapons ready.

"You know this was supposed to be a pick up mission. That's it." I heard Kaidan say somewhat bitterly from behind me.

"Yea it is awfully convenient a bunch of Alliance commandos show up right as Geth attack. Guess you guys weren't the only ones who found out about the Prothean beacon." I responded.

"If there's anything I learned throughout my life so far, it's expect the unexpected." Shepard chimed in. "It's a lesson I learned the hard way, first on Mindoir, and then again on Akuze. Compared to a thresher maw this is a cakewalk though."

Holy hell… No wonder Shepard has a tough exterior. Losing all your loved ones to slavers and then your entire squad to a thresher maw can do that to you. Not many people could walk away from that with their sanity in check let alone any optimism. Also explains her eagerness to kill me if I endanger the squad. Can't say I blame her exactly.

"Still, it would be nice for things to go according to plan just once," Kaidan continued right as the tram stopped.

"Can't say I disagree LT," Shepard replied. "But we get what we're given, and right now we've been given a bunch of Geth to take to the junkyard. Ashley, Kaidan, you two take point. I'll take up the rear with Rick here and give covering fire with my Mantis. Rick, use your pistol for suppressing fire as well. Move out!"

With that said we made our way off of the tram, up a ramp, and right into some Geth. As soon as they noticed us, their guns lit up, rounds ricocheting off our shields and walls alike, but this didn't deter the Alliance operatives. Like a well-oiled machine the three marines returned fire, easily taking the enemies' shields down. Kaidan then seemed to glow for a second as the Geth across the way floated into the air like helpless balloons. One flashlight head crackled and then died followed by a second.

"You know, now would be a good time to fire your gun. Or you can just stand there and be useless making me regret bringing you along. Whatever works for you." Shepard said with a smirk.

It was then that I realized I had been just standing there dumbstruck the whole time. Right, time to help. With that I fired a few rounds into the Geth suspended in front of us, and for the moment we were free from harm.

"Oh shit..."I heard Ashley say from in front of us. Well I thought we were fine, and then I remembered those bombs, which is probably what she just found. "Shepard we got an issue. It looks like a bomb, synced to go off with about 3 other ones. If we don't disarm these and disarm them soon, it'll be like this section of Eden Prime never existed."

"These bastards would do this..." Shepard murmured under her breath. "Ok, here's what's gonna happen," She said as she started messing with the explosive. "I'll stay behind and disarm these. I've had some experience with this before." Interesting. I'll have to ask her about that later. "You three move ahead and clear out the remaining Geth. Understood?"

"Understood," said Ashley and Kaidan in unison. "Yes, m'am." came from me. I then instantly cringed a little upon seeing Shepard's look at me.

"Rick, I told you: it's Shepard or Commander. I _hate_ m'am. Say it one more time and you'll be breathing through a tube for the next week. Now get going! We don't have much time..." and she went back to tinkering with the bomb.

Ash, Kaidan, and I ran ahead, looking for the next bomb and keeping our eyes peeled for Geth. We found the next bomb up and to the left of the first one, right in front of a bridge. "Commander, we found the next bomb," Kaidan said into his comm, "We're holding position here until you can catch up. No Geth in sight at the moment."

"Good job LT," I heard come from his comm. "Just finished with this one, I'll be up there in a second."

"So..." I started, "is Shepard always so...what's the word...harsh?"

"Couldn't tell you," replied Ashley. "I just joined her and the LT here about thirty minutes before you did."

"To answer your question: yes." Kaidan said to both of us. "It's just her personality. She takes missions seriously. On the ship or on shore leave, she tends to relax a little bit more. If you guys went through the things she did I'd like to see how you behave. Those things...change a person. The fact that she isn't utterly broken is amazing in my opinion. She just might not show it, but her crew is her family, and she'd do anything for them. When I first met her, I was terrified. Rumor had it she was a real ball-buster, and I'm not saying she isn't, but she has a good reason. After working with her for a while, I can't help but admire her…"

Ooooh, Kaidan, is that more than admiration I hear? Guess we'll have to wait and see. Assuming she even lets me on her ship. Well technically if Anderson let's me on the ship since it's currently his, but yea.

"Good job guys," Shepard said as she came running up. "I'll take care of this and you guys move on ahead."

I didn't wanna disobey orders so I ventured forward across the bridge with Ash and Kaidan, the three of us taking cover around bomb number three. And naturally as we do, Geth coming pouring out of the opposite end of the platform. The three of us exchange fire with the machines, Ash and Kaidan were taking out more than me, but I guess that's to be expected.

I popped out of cover, firing rounds towards the Geth, bullets bouncing against shields. Just a few more and they should go down...Yep shields down. Keep firing... and then my bullets started piercing its metallic hide, my foe crumpling to the ground in a heap right as I notice the one standing next to it had its shields recently taken down. "Line it up...and BOOOM headshot." I thought to myself as the bullet pierced the light on the Geth and rendered it useless.

We seem to be making good progress. Well at least until more Geth started coming in. For every Geth we killed it seemed like another took its place.

"Shepard, are you done over there?" Ashley asked over her comm. "Cause we could really use some of your sharpshooting over here right about now."

No answer. Well no traditional answer that is. Her response came when we saw a flash of light causing two Geth to drop their guns which were glowing bright red. Sabotage. Infiltrator Shep. Cool. Next thing we know, we hear a crack and see one of the Geth standing in the background fall to the ground. Another crack and a Geth's head explodes, its body sagging over. Well, it's flashlight exploded. Whatever that would be for Geth anatomy. I'm sticking with head. Ok enough distracting thoughts, help take out the two unarmed ones. The combined firepower of the three of us made short work of the disarmed machines.

Ok still got a few enemies over there. I popped up to fire lowering the shields of my target and a sniper shot following it up to finish it off. Wait...what's beeping? Fuck, that's my shields. Must duck into cover. Phew...I _just_ made that. Ok, wait here until they go back up. You know, this would be a _hell_ of a lot easier with a HUD. Oh well, just have to wait a little bit.

Ok that should be enough time, let's see who I can help ki- "OW!" I exclaimed as a bullet grazed my shoulder. Ok not enough time. Get back in cover.

"Suck it up rookie!" Shepard said as she made her way over, sidling from cover to cover across the bridge.

"Easy for you to say! You have armor! If you haven't noticed, I'm still in civilian clothing."

"Statement still stands!" She retorted with a smile. "Talk to me about pain when you have a thresher claw stuck in your leg, no medi-gel, and you can't take it out because the only thing standing between you and bleeding out is keeping said claw jammed in your leg."

"...Point taken..." I reply. "But still, you're an N7 operative, the best of the best, the cream of the crop. This is an average day for you. For me, this is my first firefight. Ever."

"Well for your first firefight you're not doing half bad... not good, but not half bad." She said as she destroyed another Geth. "Your shields should be up now. Help me finish these bastards."

And with that we made short work of the remaining Geth. Our mass accelerator rounds easily tearing through the remaining forces, and there were no more injuries or casualties on our end.

"Shepard you better get to work on these bombs," Kaidan said "We've only got about two minutes left before we're nothing but dust."

"Right, I'll take this one. LT, I'm trusting you to take care of the last one over there," She said pointing in the direction of the metallic corpses. "Rick, you stay here with me. Ashley you're with Kaidan." And with that they ran off, and I accompanied Shepard as she kneeled down to disarm the bomb.

"So, I was talking to the people left at the warehouse. They seemed to trust you, considering you led them to safety..." Shepard said to me. This is good. "_But_ they were kind of suspicious of you." This is not good... "Said you ended up here under strange circumstances, that you couldn't tell them the whole reason you ended up here, and that you seem to know a lot about what's going on."

Welp, time to see if the cover story I jumbled together holds.

"Listen, Shepard, it's not ideal but you wouldn't believe me if I-"

"You didn't let me finish," she interrupted. "The Geth are clearly here for the beacon, but they say you knew the attack was coming a few before it actually happened. I was planning on shooting you the moment I saw you, but then they said you went off trying to help, and on top it, I saw that you handled yourself decently in a combat situation. Not only that but you were killing Geth. I thought you were the one who brought the Geth here with the information I had previously, but it didn't really add up. So you have til I'm done disarming this, or I'll take you back to my ship, throw you in the brig, and get info from you there." And with that she pulled out her pistol.

Awesome.

"I was on a ship with my family. We were relocating here; hoping to build a new life. Geth attacked the ship. I was the only one to make it to an escape pod...unfortunately. My pod made it here, but it was damaged in the escape, so I didn't exactly land like I was supposed to. They found me here in the field where my pod landed. I've been unconscious until earlier today. The only reason I knew the Geth were on their way here is because we were on the same trajectory when our ship encountered them."

I stood there silently as she continued to tinker with the bomb, but not for long though cause she finished a few seconds after I was done.

"Kaidan, how's it going on your end?" She said into her comm as she stood up. I didn't hear what his response was, but seeing as how we weren't hauling ass over there, I'm guessing it was good news. "Ok, I'll meet up with you shortly." Turning off her comm, she looked at me, "Look Rick, I'm sorry to hear about that. I know all too well what it's like to lose family like that..." Well that just makes me feel bad for lying now. "But at the very least you convinced me enough to not detain you, so there's that." she said putting her gun away. "It doesn't mean I trust you though. At the very least I'm grateful for you deciding to help. It shows courage. This colony gained a good member."

Actually I wasn't planning on staying here. I mean I have nothing else to do. Might as well help save the galaxy and all that. What's the worst that can happen?

Shit... I just jinxed _EVERYTHING_ didn't I...?

"Actually Shepard, I was going to ask you...not quite sure what you'll say, but I was wondering if I could come with you after this. If you're the person I think you are, you aren't gonna let what happened here go unpunished, and I want to come with you. I may be new here, but I'm not one to let something like this slide. First my family and now my new home? I don't think so. Take me with you and I'll try my hardest to be a useful member of your crew, and hopefully ground team."

Shepard stood there for a minute, thinking about my question. Please don't let me be jinxed...

"Alright... I don't see why not. You have potential, and it looks like you're in decent shape. The Alliance could use a soldier like you. It's not exactly my operation, but I'll put in a good word with the Captain to keep you around."

Oh it'll be your ship soon enough Shep...don't worry about it. "Thanks Shepard. I really appreciate it." I said.

"We can talk about the details later, right now we need to get to the beacon," she replied, turning to her comm, "Kaidan, you still by the disarmed bomb?"

Shepard's comm sparked to life again, but I couldn't make out what was being said again. "Ok," Shepard spoke back, "We'll meet you over there. Don't do anything until we've arrived."

"Update for the guy who doesn't have a comm?" I asked as we started walking.

Shepard chuckled and then responded, "Forgot you didn't have your omni-tool to our channel, switch it to..."

"Uh, Shepard? I don't have an omni-tool _period_. Woke up in the hospital, remember?"

"Right, well we're moving to where the beacon is stored. Kaidan and Ashley moved forward to scout for Geth, and they took out the remaining forces they ran into, so now they're waiting for us to catch up. When we get there, we'll call the Normandy for pick up. It should be safe. Kaidan says the scans he's run show the ship's leaving. They think this place is about to blow so it makes sense."

"Normandy? Is that your ship?" I asked. "I heard about that. Prototype Turian-Human hybrid ship. Top of the line right?"

"Yes..." She said hesitantly. "The Normandy's supposed to be top secret. I don't know how you could have possibly heard about it. Gotta tell ya, you're not helping your suspicious aura thing, Rick."

Fuck. Keep extensive game knowledge to the minimum in the future. Forgot about that detail about top-secret production.

"I have...friends in high places," I replied as quick as possible.

"Really...well I probably know half of those friends," She said as we walked down the ramp to where the beacon was. "But, we'll save this conversation for a later time."

As we walked up, however Kaidan had already started getting pulled toward the beacon, and Shepard saw this. She shoved me to the side and silently sprint forward, throwing the lieutenant out of the way, and getting suspended mid-air herself. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head, while her arms and legs spread a little and stiffened. It almost looked like she was having a floating seizure. Then, without warning, the beacon exploded, sending Shepard's body flying into Ashley.

Even knowing that was coming, it was still surprising for me. The explosion was a lot bigger than the game portrayed it. Hell, the shockwave knocked me on my ass. And it happened so quickly.

"Kaidan to Normandy! We need pick up immediately! Send Chakwas and a med-squad, the beacon just did something really weird to the Commander. I think she's alive, but she's out cold. We need this ASAP Joker!"

The rest was just a hectic blur. People hauling Shepard into the Normandy, Anderson questioning who I was, Ashley and Kaidan getting separated from me, Chakwas slapping some medi-gel where the bullet grazed me, then being taken to a room where I could rest, which I honestly need right now. Well... after the shock of today's events pass that is. I wake up in the world of Mass Effect, I have to fight a bunch of Geth, I meet _the_ Commander Shepard, and now I'm on the Normandy! It's almost too much to process.

I just wish I could walk around. I'm not in the brig, but I'm in lockdown soooo... yea. I mean I completely understand considering everything that happened, but still. As I lay down I realized just how exhausted I really was. Fighting an army of semi-sentient robots does that to you apparently. Guess I'll just wait until Shepard and Anderson come talk to me. Might as well just lay...here...think about...whatever…

**A/N: And that's it for this chapter. Hope you guys enjoyed it. Should be updating soon again. **

**Again, any criticism or feedback can be left in a review or a PM, so feel free to do so.**

**Rfalzar, signing out.**


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: A Wrench in the Plans**

Whelp, so much for thinking. I passed out almost right after my head hit the pillow. About 12 hours had passed while I slept and the door control was still solid red. Holy shit I must've been tired, but waking up from a mini coma and getting tossed into a firefight will probably do that to you. Guess they don't plan on letting me out anytime soon... Might as well do something somewhat entertaining.

I turned on my iPod and played some relaxing/thinking music. The Black Keys should do. Ironically enough "Same Old Thing" was the first song to play. Ha. Funny.

As I sat there, the gravity of the situation I was in seemed to hit me. I'm on the Normandy. I'm on the same ship as Commander Freaking Shepard. Yes, that's her middle name until I learn otherwise. The most kick-ass group of people ever combined will be on this ship soon. With me. And I have a chance to be there with them while they save everyone, but do I want to do this? All of the missions the crew goes on are extremely dangerous. I could die in the blink of an eye on any one of them. Then again I could die crossing the street...but that doesn't really apply in this universe what with flying cars and all that. Whatever point stands.

I guess it boils down to this: will my need for self-preservation overpower my need to do something? After 30 minutes of weighing the options to this, I figured it was simply a matter of duty. I know what's going to happen. I can prevent certain things to happen and cause others to occur. I know I can't just sit around and do nothing when I know that I could be making a difference in this universe. Join Shepard it is. Besides it's not like I have anything else to do. I mean I have no money, no job, no place to stay, and hell, I don't even have an identity in this place.

Shit...

I don't have an identity. Well I guess I can always start new? _If _this fact slips by Anderson, Shepard, Alliance Brass, and just about everybody else out there. Better come up with something...

Naturally right as I thought that, the door controls turned green and in walks Anderson. I turned off my iPod and took out my headphones.

"Mr. O'Connor," he says while extending his hand.

I returned the gesture "Please, it's just Rick. Pleasure to see you again, but I don't think we were properly introduced last time. Ke-aptain Anderson I presume?" I almost called him Keith David. That woulda been awkward...

"In the flesh. I apologize for the...rudeness of our last meeting, but I didn't know who you were. Better safe I always say."

"Don't worry about it Captain, I would've done the same."

"Smart man," Anderson replied with a chuckle. "So I guess the first order of business is a simple question: why are you here?"

"Well...I kinda got swept up in the chaos of getting Shepard onboard," I said. "I was put in here until everything was figured out."

"Not what I meant," the Captain interrupted. "I mean why did you want to come onboard this ship, help our cause. It would've been easier and safer to just stay on the colony..." He did not sound amused. Well so much for that.

"Sorry...wasn't expecting the question. Just thought... never mind," I say back. "I basically have nowhere else to go. I came here because I don't know what else I'm supposed to do. Those metallic monsters destroyed everything I had except for the few things that were in my pocket when they found me. I guess coming along with Commander Shepard seemed like the best option I had, if not the only one. I can either sit around on some planet or space station wondering if there was something I could do to prevent what happened to me, or I can join the Alliance to make sure nobody has to go through what happened to me."

We both sat there in silence. He was clearly thinking about what I said. After a minute or two had passed, Anderson finally spoke up. "Honorable. Shepard told me your story and I can't express how sorry I am to hear about what happened..."

Whew... I'm glad that held up against Anderson...

"But I'm not sure I entirely believe you," He finished.

... Crap.

"Sir?" I asked.

"Well as I said, I just spoke with the Commander," he started, "and while she was somewhat suspicious of you, she didn't believe it warranted anything major. Then I ran a sweep of every colonial database, as well as Earth's records, and we can't find anything about you. You're a ghost. It's like you don't exist. So who are you really?"

Well... I wasn't exactly accounting for this. I knew they'd run a background check on me. I also knew that I wouldn't turn up. How can I explain it? Beats the hell out of me... I don't see this ending well.

"Honestly...?" I ask. "Even if I could tell you, you wouldn't believe me."

"So... that's it?" he asks.

"Only thing I can say Captain..."

"I see..." he said sounding rather grave. "There's an armed escort outside waiting to take you to the brig. We'll be arriving at the Citadel in due time. We'll drop you off there when we arrive, and your belongings will be gathered and returned to you at said time." He started to leave the room.

"Captain, wait," I said standing up, hoping to make my case. "You can't-"

He spun around to look me in the eye, facial expression none too pleased. "I _can_ and I _will_. This is my ship. Detaining you in the brig is my decision. You're lucky I don't think you're a threat otherwise I'd be taking you to Alliance officials as soon as we arrived on the Citadel. Consider not being incarcerated our thank you for any assistance back on Eden Prime, but know that I will continue my investigation into you. I have other matters to attend to right now. The escort will see you to the brig." With that he stormed off, and two men in Alliance uniform with Avenger assault rifles took his place.

So much for helping this galaxy...

* * *

Apparently the Normandy had a brig. It was a tiny room off the side of the Hangar Bay. Not exactly the most comfortable of arrangements... but it is kind of supposed to be a prison cell. On the bright side, it had a shower so there's that. Kinda needed one of those...

As I stood under the stream of hot water, I couldn't help but ask myself how the hell this all went so wrong? Naturally as soon as I make up my mind, fate has to throw a stick in the spokes...

Should I have just told them the truth? I mean I have the I.D. to prove it, but at the same time, they could just say it's a fake and dismiss it. I can't just sit around on the Citadel. I have no money, no job to support anything I'd do, and still no identity. I refuse to sit around and do nothing, especially with the things that I know. I can make a huge difference here, but I can't do anything if I'm not on this damn ship.

I turned off the shower, dried off, and started to dress. There has to be something I can do... Maybe there _is_ something... but it's a long shot. Shepard still has stuff to do on the Citadel. If I can somehow help her out with that, or prove to her that I can be useful, I might be able to make it back on here even without the whole 'not knowing who I am' stigma. It's worth a shot, I guess. Better than anything else I can come up with at least. When they let me out on the Citadel, I'll go sell some of my stuff for credits. It has to be worth something, I mean it's all close to 200 years old and it still works. I can buy some armor and stuff after. From there I can hang out in Chora's Den until they need help. As to convincing them to let me back on this ship... well I have time to figure that out I guess.

The door opened up just as I threw my shirt on. "We're at the Citadel. This is your stop," said the Alliance marine assigned to my guard detail. His accent kinda sounded like he was from Boston.

I sat up and walked over to the brig entrance, "Guess it is. No Shepard or Anderson?"

"They're still getting things ready in the CIC. My orders were ta' get you off this ship as soon we docked," he replied. "We're taking you to the hangar exit into the cargo bay."

"You have my stuff right?" I ask

"Yeah, jus' follow me."

He lead me out into the hangar. The brig was right by the elevator. Not entirely sure why though. Seems like a bad idea...

"Why is the brig right next to the elevator? And in the same area as the armory?" I asked as we made our way towards the open hangar door.

"And why should I tell you?"

"Last request?"

"Heh... No. Let's just say it was probably a good thing that you didn't decide ta break out. Wouldn't have ended well for anyone."

"Better than nothing I guess..." I replied as we made our way past the Mako. The rest of the short walk was made in silence. As we neared the end of the ramp that was the hangar entrance, there was another marine standing there with his hands full waiting for us.

"He's all yours Corey," my escort said to the shorter, blond and blue-eyed male in front of us as he walked away.

"You shouldn't have..." Corey replied with mock sincerity. He turned to face me. "I was told to bring you your stuff." He started shuffling through the stuff in his hands. "Phone, wallet, iPod, headphones, all incredibly old school. That it for your personal effects?"

"Just about," I replied, putting the things in assorted pockets. "What about my weapons?"

"Ah! Almost forgot," he said while reaching down to pick up a case at his feet. "Seeing as how you're just a civilian and you don't have clearance to wear weapons on the Citadel, we took the liberty of putting your shotgun, pistol, and shield generator in this case for you."

"Thanks, I appreciate it. Now where's this elevator?"

"Down the catwalk and to the right."

"Thanks," I said while walking away. I turned around and continued walking backwards while I yelled to Corey. "Good luck with everything, and I hope you guys get the bastards responsible for Eden Prime."

"Oh, we will!" he yelled back. I spun back around and made my way towards the elevator. Luckily it had already been summoned for me. I pressed the button to get to the lower level. The doors closed, and I felt my stomach lurch upward as we descended towards our destination.

God, I hate elevators... Yea I understand they're convenient, but eight times outta ten, something bad always happens to me on one. Never understood why. Just another thing I attributed to my shitty karma. The door suddenly opened.

Well, that's a refreshing change of pace. A fast elevator that I didn't get stuck on. That pry used up my allotment of luck for the day...

This time I was in a cargo bay of sorts, and a Turian in C-Sec armor was standing at the elevator. He wordlessly escorted me to the main lobby and left me to my own devices.

Well, everything looks like it did during Mass Effect 1, which means the rapid transit should be just over here. I walked over to see a terminal with a few of the futuristic taxis lined up.

I walked over to the terminal and started tinkering with it. Let's see...Wards...Markets. That should do it. The door on the car directly in front of me hissed open and slid upwards, allowing access.

This should be fun...

I sat down in the car, and the door started to close. All of the lights then flickered on inside the cab. It slowly rose up and idled.

"Thank you for choosing Citadel Rapid Transit," said an Avina-like voice. "We will depart shortly, and it will take approximately...15 minutes to get to your destination. Please buckle-up while a systems check is run."

Better comply... I reached up and grabbed the strap to secure myself in.

"Departing now," said taxi as it took off.

* * *

I have to say, getting used to flying cars might be a bit more difficult than I originally anticipated. That was... frightening to say the least. Then again I'm used to internal combustion engines and rolling around on the ground as opposed to rocketing through the air at ridiculous speeds. On the bright side I made it to the markets without any issue.

I started walking away from the Rapid Trans station towards the upper vending stalls trying to figure out how much time I had before I missed my opportunity to get back on the ship. I walked around trying to think of a timeline of what was about to happen. When I left the Normandy, Shepard and everybody was still on board, and that council meeting is going to take a little while so I should be safe for about an hour, hour and a half... That should be plenty of time to sell my old stuff, pick up some new gear, and wait it out at Chora's Den.

While I was lost in thought I had made my way to the middle of the markets, so now I'm just kinda standing here like an idiot. Hmmm... Which stall should I go to? I spotted a Salarian, remembering that his name was Morlan. He was always pretty fast-paced, and if I remember correctly his wares weren't exactly what I'm looking for.

I continued to stand there and scan the stalls for somebody to do business with. "No, no, no..." I muttered to myself as I perused my options. "Here we go..." I said as I laid my eyes on a Volus merchant against the wall near the stairs to the lower markets and remembered he had decent wares. I made my way over to him with a smirk on my face.

"Greetings Earth-Clan," he managed to say before his respirator kicked in, "How may I help you today?"

"Well I was interested in a little buying and selling," I replied. "I have a few pieces of older tech you might be interested in, and I was interested in purchasing an Omni-tool, some armor, and maybe a weapon or two."

"Well, I have good news and bad news..."," he said, his interest piqued in what I had to offer. "I'm interested in the older tech... and have many makes and model of quality Omni-tools..., however I cannot help with the armor and weapons."

"Well, I'll take what I can get right now," I said with a defeated sigh.

"Again, apologies. Now, what is this old tech you mentioned?" he said, genuinely interested.

"Back to business I see," ruffling around in my pockets to get my 21st century gear. "I have this cell phone and this iPod from the early 21st century century. Still in working condition."

What followed was what I'm guessing was the equivalent of a Volus gasping. I couldn't really tell with the whole respirator thing, but his body language indicated that he was shocked.

"W-Where did you find these Earth-Clan?" he asked, shock evident in his voice.

"Old family relics kept in surprisingly good condition," I answered with a smirk.

"Do you mind if I test them? Make sure they're worth the money I'm ready to offer you for them?"

"Sure," I said while handing them to him. I had turned them on in anticipation of something like this.

"Earth-Clan... I can get it to activate... but I can't navigate the screens..."

I reached over and grabbed it from him. "It's a touch screen. Activated by electrical impulses created when you touch it," I said while showing him that it did, in fact, work. "Unfortunately because of your suit, you can't really interact with it well..." Hope this doesn't affect him purchasing it...

"I've seen what I needed to see. As long as it _does_ work... I am willing to buy them both. Do you have any other interesting thing you're willing to sell?"

"Well... it's not tech, but I do have some old earth money from the same time period on me," I said as I pulled it out of my wallet and laid it on the counter.

Again the Volus seemed startled that he found these 200 year old relics.

"And how much money was this in that time?" he asked.

"Ummm..." I started counting the money. "About fifty dollars."

"I would also be interested in purchasing that off you as well. Now you said you were interested in an Omni-tool correct?"

"Yessir."

"Well lucky for you I just received... some top of the line equipment. _This_ is a Savant X," he said holding a small, thin circle that looked like a wrist band. "Top of the line. It can link to shield generators and provide... it with a large strength boost on the battle-field. It makes programming incredibly easy... assuming you know how, hacking is made much easier... lightning fast extranet access... overall, it just makes all the basic processes... much faster and much more effective."

"How much is it?" I asked, eyes set on purchasing it already.

"Well... after what I owe you for your goods... it looks like I still owe you roughly 80,000 credits."

I almost fainted right there. 80,000? For an old phone, iPod and some paper money? They must really be rare in this day and age. I don't think I've ever handled that much money before, let alone carry it on my person.

"S-Sounds like a deal!" I said, excitement barely contained in my voice.

"Excellent! We have an agreement then," he exclaimed, holding out his hand.

"That we do," I replied with a grin while returning the gesture with a firm shake. "Just one question though: is there any way you can transfer the data on my iPod over to my new Omni-tool?"

"Not much experience with Omni-tools I take it?" he asked, handing me the tiny wrist band.

"Not really... Just slip this over my wrist?" As I slipped it over my left wrist, it constricted, not to make it uncomfortable but to the perfect tightness so it wouldn't fall off. The familiar orange glow that I knew all too well from the game then covered my forearm and hand. I couldn't help but smirk. I stood there rotating my arm just to get the feel of it and couldn't quite get over the fact that I now owned an Omni-tool.

The harsh click of the Volus' respirator snapped me back to reality. "All you do is look for the 'Programs' tab... go to transfer... and your Omni-tool will do the rest."

"Ok let's see here... Bring up the main menu, swipe to the left a few times, there's programs. Now how do I open it," I said to myself. Then I remembered how my old mac track pad worked, clumped the ends of my fingers together, and spread them apart, which brought up the menu. "Ok...scanner, repair, Medi-gel, programming, communications, transfer!" I said with a tap. The middle of the orange screen lit up with the words 'Tap to Start Scan.'

"Now just hold the palm part of the tool over your iPod."

I complied. Immediately after, a thin orange line shot out of the circular part on the palm and ran up and down the relatively ancient device. Thirty seconds later and the process was complete as the Omni-tool pinged orange with a confirmation and shut down its interface.

"All your files should be on there. Thanks again for the business. This old tech made my day. And this," he said while extending his hand with a small credit card like thing, "is the rest of the credits you're owed. Have a wonderful day Earth-Clan."

"And you as well," I replied with a slight nod of my head. "Before I go, can you recommend a good gun and armor shop nearby?"

He brought his hand, or claw, up to his chin before saying, "Try Harry's Supplies in the lower markets. It's a decent shop tucked into the corner. Tell him Voh sent you."

"Thanks," I said while turning away with a two-fingered wave to head to the nearby stairs.

As I descended the staircase to the lower markets, the scene around me finally hit home. I stood at the end of the railing, finally realizing that I was at the Citadel, the heart of galactic civilization. I looked around appreciating where I was for a few seconds. Never in my life did I think I would see another species besides human, let alone a place where they peacefully, well kinda, co-exist. Guess I was too busy trying to figure out a way and rush to get back on Shepard's crew to really appreciate it...

Crap. Shepard's crew, right. Gotta haul ass.

"Tucked in the corner... ah-ha!" I muttered to myself as I saw a flashing sign indicating the store the Volus had mentioned, Voh I think his name was. I weaved my way around the stands and through the crowd filled with Asari, Turian, Elcor, Salarian, and Hanar alike before I finally was able to enter the army supply store.

For being tucked into a corner this place was surprisingly large. It wasn't very wide, but it seemed to extend for a good distance. It had a fairly straight-forward layout as well: guns and armors decorating the walls with accessories on racks in the middle. I looked around, noticing only a few other people in here, besides me, who were browsing for merchandise, and then I spotted a middle-aged human behind a counter tinkering with his Omni-tool by a large cylindrical machine.

"Excuse me, sir?" I asked as I got closer to the counter.

"Hey, I'm Harry. What can I do ya for today?" he asked while turning around with half-smile on his face, which instantly turned into look of confusion upon seeing me. "Aren't you a little young to be looking to buy a bunch of weapons and armor?"

I was a little shocked. Most people thought I was older than my actual age of 20 mainly because of my height, but apparently not this guy.

"Do I really look that young?" I asked, raising my one brow above the other.

"Young enough for me to ask at least..."

"Well... If you have to know, I just got recruited to the Alliance, but I wanted to bring a bit of my own style with me," I lied. "Something that packs a bit more of a punch and is a little more accurate than the standard Avenger and Predator."

"I think I understand," he said as his confused face turned to one with a sly smirk on it.

"Would it help to mention that Voh sent me?" I asked, hoping it did something.

"Voh sent ya, eh? Well I'll give you a bit of a discount. We're old friends. So, bit more firepower and protection, huh?"

"Yessir," I replied, setting the case with my weapons on the counter. "I already know the weapons I want, but you're gonna have to help me out with the armor. Last time I checked there were hundreds of makes and models."

"That there is," he chuckled. "So the weapons?"

"An M-5 Phalanx and an M-15 Vindicator."

"Solid choices..."

"I was hoping I could sell these to put towards them," I mentioned while opening the case.

He looked over the contents of the case, doing a double-take when he saw the shotgun. "The generator and the pistol aren't going to get you much, but this shotgun is SPECTRE grade equipment. I don't wanna even ask how you got it, but let's call it an even trade for the Vindicator. Are you sure you wanna sell it?"

"Positive. I'm kinda new to the whole combat thing, so the farther away I can stay from my enemies, the better.

"Fair enough I guess," he muttered, while slipping the case underneath the counter. He then grabbed a datapad and powered it on. "Before we get into the armor, how much are you willing to spend today? Need to narrow down the selection based on price range."

"Well..." I said thinking it over. "Preferably no more than 75,000 credits."

Harry's eyes lit up a bit at the sound of that. "Sounds good to me," he said and tossed the datapad to me. "Lemme know if you need any info," he finished while turning back to the cylindrical object.

I started to think. What type of armor do I want? Light? Or medium? I'm not exactly used to any armor at all so I think I'll go with light. Doesn't matter how much protection the armor offers, if I can't move around I'll be dead anyhow. I know that the classifications probably refer to the amount of protection they offer, but it's kinda common sense to figure that the better the protection, the more likely it is to be heavier from extra plating.

I tapped the light category, and a huge list popped up on the screen in front of me. Better get to browsing... After a few minutes of scrolling one of the models caught my eye.

"What can you tell me about the light Skirmisher model?"

"Decent set of armor. Offers a bit more protection than your standard models, boosts the amount of damage you can take without sacrificing your mobility. Also comes equipped with a standard arm pouch to store ammo blocks or grenades should you so choose. Shield charger that comes with it is high-end military grade. Any other questions about it?"

"That about covers it... Except, are the standard colors this awful purplish-blue and red combo? My eyes hurt just looking at the picture." I asked with a skeptical tone.

"Unfortunately," he laughed.

"Well... I guess I _could_ always blind my enemies with my armor. That might work out ok for me."

Harry just chuckled again. "You don't have to stick with the standard colors, you know. For a small fee, this machine right here," he said pointing to the cylinder he had been messing with, "can customize your armor any way you want it."

I paused upon hearing those last few words. Should I? Why the hell not? I've got nothing to lose.

"That's the way I need it?" I ask with a smirk on my face, at least until I realized he might not know Journey. Hell, or if Journey even exists in this universe, or time, or whatever I got myself into.

He slowly turned around with a pleasantly surprised look on his face. "Any way you want it... Didn't know anybody but me knew that song. It's old as hell."

"I consider it somewhat of a rock classic. Anyhow, if I can customize this eyesore of a color scheme, I think I'll take the Light Skirmisher model."

"Excellent choice. I'll bring that right up and throw it in the customizer for ya," he said as walked over to a large crate. He came back with a case in his hand that had slid out of the crate and opened it to put the pieces into the machine.

"Customization options should be on that data pad now," Harry informed me as he closed the doors to the cylinder.

I looked down to the datapad, which now showed a color representation of my armor with different options on the side. I started tinkering with the color schemes until I found one that I liked. Then I noticed a graphics tab, and my curiosity got the better of me so naturally I had to see what it was.

As I clicked the tab, a bunch of images came up. Anything you wanted to find was in there. On the first page alone the images ranged from skulls to army symbols to... Asari pin-up girls? Can't say I'm gonna have one of those on my armor. I scrolled for a few pages until something caught my eye. I selected it with a small smile and hit the finalize button.

"Should be ready in a little bit," Harry told me. "That things a miracle of technological innovation. Used to have to hand customize all the paint jobs around here... So will that be all for you?"

"Gimme a minute to look around first."

"I'll be here if you need me."

I strolled up and down the aisles of the store looking for things that might be useful. After a few minutes I made my way back to the register with two more things in my hands: a Kuwashii Visor and a wicked looking combat knife about eight inches long.

Harry sighed, "You didn't tell me you'd be buying another armor piece... Luckily for you it's small." He took it and placed it in a helmet sized version of the customizer. "I programmed the same scheme you used for your full armor, and it should be done roughly around the same time."

"Sounds great. So... what's the damage?"

Harry chuckled as he added up the total. "Looks like all of its gonna run you about 77,500... I know it's over your preferred limit, but the last couple items ran you over."

I winced a little bit at the total. So much for having plenty of money I guess... Oh well, money well spent if it helps get me back on Shepard's team. Plus, it's not like I'm totally broke.

"Here you go," I said a little less enthusiastically than before as I handed him my credit chit.

"Trust me, you won't regret it come your first fire fight. You may have expensive taste but that expensive taste might just save your ass..."

"That's what I'm hoping..."

Harry handed back the credit chit. "Looks like it's still gonna be a bit for the armor, and seeing as how you're the only other customer in here right now..." he said while looking around and seeing that the store was empty, "you got any other strange music tastes?"

A low laugh came from my throat, "Hey now, strange and classical are two very different things. And yes I do. Most of my music is from the early 21st century."

"Like who?"

"Well I listen to anything really, just as long its not country music. I absolutely _hate_ it."

"Can't say I disagree with you there..."

"Let's see... I listen to AC/DC, I'm convinced that Bohemian Rhapsody is one of few songs that you can repeatedly listen to without getting tired, as well as Don't Stop Believing by Journey..." and the conversation continued.

* * *

I can't say I've ever been a huge fan of "Gentleman's Clubs." Something about them just seems... strange to me. Not that I can't appreciate the allure of half-naked women dancing in front of me, it's just the whole scene to me seems awkward. Like sure, if you're there after a shitty day and just wanna get hammered while some chick strips for you on stage, then by all means do it. I sincerely doubt you give a single fuck at that point.

However it's kind of a whole different story when you're in one and trying to stay as sober as possible for the upcoming firefight. The combination of sobriety and nerves tends to make the whole thing way worse than it already was. It's semi difficult to appreciate the um... 'atmosphere' I guess, for lack of a better term, when you're mentally prepping yourself for a huge gunfight. This whole visit to Chora's Den is just awful...

I had left Harry's about thirty minutes after our conversation started. Five minutes into it another customer walked in, so he suggested that I try the shooting range in the back to get used to the guns. I was pretty practiced in shooting guns before I ended up here and Eden Prime only reinforced that, so it wasn't long until I was nailing the targets dead on. I also noticed that the Vindicator was for more than a simple three burst rifle. It had a switch for single-shot and full-auto as well so I messed around with those settings for a while. I spent about twenty minutes doing that until Harry informed me my stuff was ready, and he packed up everything I needed and sent me on my way. He even threw in about 10 spare ammo blocks for "serving the Alliance." Before I left I quickly changed into the semi-thick, surprisingly comfortable, one-piece, spandexy body-suit that I dubbed the 'under armor' because it reminded me of the thermal clothing from back home, and threw on my civilian clothes back over it. I kinda figured walking into Chora's Den strapped to the teeth would be a bad idea.

I grabbed my two brief-cases full of weapons and armor, threw them in the back-pack Harry also threw in as part of my 'knowing-Voh-discount', and made my way to Chora's Den. Unfortunately I realized about an hour and a half had passed since I left the Normandy, but when I got to the 'gentleman's club' it hadn't already been shot up. Wrex wasn't there and neither was Harkin, so it seemed I still had a chance to catch up to Shepard when she came back to get info on Tali.

"Now how am I gonna play this when they arrive..." I murmured to myself while sipping on a beer. Fun-fact: Citadel drinking age is 19 apparently. I cringed a little as I swallowed the liquid. Beer was never my favorite to begin with, and I had been here now for for roughly twenty minutes preparing myself so it had long since grown warm. I would've ordered something stronger, but I wanted to be sober during the fight and 'explaining-what-I'm-doing-here' part of this plan so... beer it was.

My train of thought was interrupted as the music was cut and a loud announcement came over the PA's instead: "Sorry for the inconvenience, but the club is shutting down for the rest of the day. All patrons and non-essential personnel need to the leave the premises as soon as possible. No exceptions. If you refuse the bouncers _will_ throw you outta here. Have a pleasant day."

Huh, so that's why there's only armed bouncers awaiting Shepard when she gets here. Welp... looks like the moment of truth has arrived.

As I was finishing off the rest of my beer, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. I looked up to see a Turian bouncer standing there with his arms crossed and looking none too pleased.

"You're gonna have to leave... NOW," he uttered forcefully.

I have to make it seem like I belong here, so let's have a little fun with this... "I was... I was just about to leave. I ssswear occifer. It's just... I'm having a liiiiiittle bit of an issue standing up right now. Just gimme.. gimme a minute..." I say with my best drunk guy impersonation. It may have been stereotypical, but whatever, I was having fun, and it didn't raise any questions. I was just a drunk idiot to this guy.

He slapped the back of my head. "Leave. Now." He repeated.

"Ok, ok. No need to get violent," I said while I shakily stood out of my seat. "Just gotta grab this..."

I just barely managed to grab my gear before he grabbed me by the arm rather forcefully and dragged me over to the exit, tossing me out and causing me to stumble and fall. The door then slid shut while the red 'locked' indicator appeared.

"Worth it..." I said to myself as I pushed up off the ground and dusted my clothes off. Hmmm... Where can I change? I looked around for a little and then noticed a small alley. That should work. I walked over to the alley and unpacked my bag, opening the case that held the armor inside. As I took it out of the case I noticed how good the customizations worked out: black primary undercoat, green secondary highlighting patterns along all the various protective pieces, and grey highlights bringing out the finer details.

Contrary to my first thoughts about the armor, it wasn't just a one piece thing. Each plate was separate and had to lock onto the under-suit. I started with the extremities as I put on the boots, greaves, and gauntlets. Then came the chest plate. This is going to be awkward. It was two pieces, and the only thing that was going hold it together was when it connected with the back piece. I put on the back piece first, hoping that gravity could take over and keep it on while I applied the front breastplate. As soon as it made contact with the under armor, however, it clicked. Huh... must connect somewhere with that. I'm not gonna complain though, because it makes my job easier. I then applied the front section.

Lastly, I grabbed the pauldrons, putting the normal sized one on my right shoulder while pausing to admire the larger oblong one for my left shoulder. The design I had found was a Celtic cross, and I had it painted on there in the grey that detailed my armor. Unlike a normal cross, the corners were pointed, the edges were concave, and instead of just a grey fill-in, there were grey Celtic braids within the cross that extended from the base to form vines that went outward and towards the lower parts of the pauldron. It all sat atop the black primary coat, and it came out pretty sweet.

Pleased with my decision, I placed it on my left shoulder. I then grabbed my weapons and Kuwashii Visor. I decided to leave the standard helmet in my backpack for this particular fight. Never really cared for helmets anyhow. Always made me feel claustrophobic.

Harry said just to place the Visor on my head and hit the button on the back, so hopefully it works and stays on. I followed the kind, middle-aged mans instructions and the visor started to constrict until it was snug, but also comfortable. The only reason I knew it was there was because the of the minor weight difference and the whole holographic thing that covered my right eye. I then grabbed my weapons, slapping the guns and shield generator on their respective mag-locks and strapping the knife to my lower right leg.

So Harry also said to finalize the armor process, I had to get my Omni-tool to seal it all together. I activated the external interface for the orange device on my armor, and as it popped up, the word 'Initializing' had taken up the entire screen. After a few seconds a confirmation came up saying 'Skirmisher Armor Confirmed. Connect with suit VI?' I selected yes on my interface, and the armor sealed shut with a quiet 'schink' and a 'hiss.' We're good to go.

I decided to leave my bag in the alley and return for it after this skirmish was over. I walked down the hallway towards the only entrance that Shepard can come in, and as I rounded the corner, I hit something really hard, and fell on my ass.

"Watch it human," sneered a low thundering voice.

That sounds familiar... I looked up to see the towering, scarred, red mass of muscle and anger known as Wrex standing above me. Holy shit. It's really him. My second favorite squad-mate in the series. He's way taller than in the game. He was usually eye to eye with Shepard in the game, but not in real life. Like he's probably a good foot taller than I am, and I'm probably about half a head taller than Shepard. Well that's gonna be a little weird to get used to. Normally don't have look up to people. Oh well, it'll pass as I hopefully get to know him... but I just started off our friendship on the wrong foot by smacking into him. Wonderful.

Apparently my look of awe was misinterpreted as a look of fear as Wrex just huffed and walked away shaking his head.

So if that's Wrex, Shepard and the others must be right behind him. I stood up, looking down as I dusted myself off, and as I looked up, I was greeted with the barrel of a pistol to my face which prompted me to instantly raise my hands.

On the other end of the pistol, a familiar voice sounded. "What's a heavily armed civilian doing out... Rick?"

"Shepard?"

The pistol slowly lowered, exposing the face of the woman who saved my life less than a day ago as well as the faces of Ashley, Kaidan, and Garrus behind her. "Thank God it's you. I thought I was about to die..." I said while exhaling a breath I didn't realize I was holding.

"Don't be too thankful just yet. I might still kill you if I don't like why you're here"

Well that was cold... "I was uh... I just left Chora's Den. I stopped there to get a drink, and then they kicked everyone out for some reason. I'm assuming that reason is you?"

"You could say that. Still doesn't explain why you look like you're about to fight a war."

"Just some protection I bought. Put it on cause I assumed trouble was coming this way. Didn't wanna be the innocent, defenseless civilian killed in the crossfire."

"Ok... So all the civvies were evacuated from the club? We're basically just looking at shooting down a bunch of Fist's goons?"

"Yea."

"Good, now get out of here before you actually _do _end up being that civilian," she said as she moved to walk around me, her crew following closely behind.

"Shepard, c'mon... you're not getting rid of me that easy. I still wanna help," I said as I moved to block her.

She moved me aside with a quick shove. "Look kid... we've been through this," she said with an annoyed and tired tone. "Your help on Eden Prime was appreciated, and I'm sure you can help us kill some lowlife thugs seeing as how you took down Geth. Truth is I can't and won't trust you to not shoot me in the back unless you tell me the truth about yourself. You won't do that. End of story. Run along." She turned to walk towards the bar.

"Listen Shepard, I know you're in a hurry, but I can do more than just help fight-"

"Like WHAT?!" she yelled while wheeling around with her arms in the air. "Get in the fucking way? I'm in a hurry here, and I don't have time to trade words with you, so unless you know where this damn Quarian is that I'm supposed to find, I suggest you get the fuck out of here before I have Wrex eat you."

There was a thundering chuckle in the background signaling Wrex's approval.

"I'm trying to tell you that Shepard!" I replied somewhat angrily. "I overheard some of Fist's thugs talk about it while I was in there! The idiots walked right by me mentioning a Quarian in the back alley up those stairs and around the corner!"

Her look changed from anger to disbelief. "You're sure?"

"Positive," I answered still rather angrily.

"Well then, we have no time to waste. C'mon team," she ordered while storming off in the other direction.

"Shepard, wait!" Wrex yelled from behind, causing us all to look at him. "I was hired to kill Fist, and I'm not leaving until I do what I was paid to do."

Shepard sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose, "Fine, fine... Alenko stay here and help him out."

"Aye, aye," he responded.

"Williams, Garrus, you're with me." She turned to leave.

"And what about me?" I ask.

Another sigh. "Look Rick, if you really wanna make yourself useful then stay here with Wrex and back him and Kaidan up."

"You won't regret it Shepard," I said with a smile.

"You'll know if I do," she said before running off with Ash and Garrus in tow. Well, that's... comforting.

"C'mon humans..." Wrex mumbled as he trudged his way over to the door. We all arrived there to find out it was still locked. "Anyone think they can hack through this?"

"Yea, just gimme a minute," I heard Kaidan's raspy voice say as he knelt down and brought up his Omni-tool. "Just be ready to take down the guards on the other side, cause as soon as this door opens I can guarantee they'll be shooting."

"Shouldn't be an issue..." muttered the massive Krogan as he enveloped himself in a shimmering blue barrier.

"Ok... that should just about do it..." Kaidan muttered.

Oh, crap. Here we go...

"Breach in 3...2...1...NOW!"

The door opened, the sound of gunfire from both sides echoing in the small bar. The three of us rounded the corner, Kaidan and Wrex taking cover on the left and right chest-high walls, respectively, at the club's entrance while I stood against the door frame behind Wrex. I figured Kaidan would need more help than Wrex, so I chose the cover that would allow me to aid the Lieutenant better.

I looked to the left hand side of the bar to notice three gun-men peppering Kaidan's cover with fire. Better help him out with that. I brought my pistol up to aim, shooting at the one guy who thought that the tiny bar table would be good cover. Wrong. I fired at him until I noticed that his shields sparked and went down. The next shot caught him in the throat, and he went down in a bloody, gurgling mass. Soon after, the target Kaidan had picked fell to the ground clutching at the hole in his chest.

I went to aim at the last thug on that side of the bar and was about to fire, but I hesitated. My finger wouldn't pull the trigger. I just got slapped in the face with the realization that I had taken somebody's life for the first time. Geth are different: they're machines. Sure they're semi-sentient and I should feel bad about it, but I never hesitated to take down the next platform. A human being on the other hand is kinda different. At least for me it is. If I can't kill a person this whole being on Shepard's crew thing might be more difficult than I had been expecting.

Apparently during my struggle with my moral compass I had taken a few rounds, and my visor just started flashing to indicate that my shields were below 25%. I took cover for my shields to regenerate and took a few deep breaths.

"Ok, it's either them or us, and I'm sure as hell not gonna let it be us. Just go out there and kill these guys. Can't be that hard..." I whispered to myself while the battle continued to sound in the room next to me.

After my shields had regenerated I rounded the corner with my pistol and aimed, noticing the final man had just started to lift helplessly off of the ground in a blue aura. I fired my pistol at the human version of a clay pigeon and drove multiple rounds into him. His shields soon died and I realized he was dead once he stopped squirming in the air. That was a little easier. Still can't say I'm exactly comfortable with it, but I refuse to die here.

Looks like that's about it for that side of the room. Most of the guards probably reinforced the other side seeing as how Wrex was tearing through the guards. Kaidan and I changed the direction we were aiming to back up Wrex when we suddenly saw a scowl set in on the Krogan's face.

"Cover me..." he mumbled as brought up his barrier again and switched to his shotgun. "I have something to settle." And then he walked off with his shotgun in one hand.

I quickly took his previous position position as he strolled to the back of the room. As Wrex walked off, two gun-men popped out from behind the bar and started firing at whoever was closest. Kaidan and I promptly put them down, our rounds ripping through their shields and causing spurts of red mist to shoot out from the bodies that soon fell limp and disappeared back behind the counter. I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye and looked up to where the dancer's usually were to see an armed guard take aim at Wrex.

"Kaidan!" I yelled as I pointed my pistol towards the assailant and started firing again. He got the hint and added his pistol fire to mine. The thug soon fell off of his platform like a bloody rag doll and crashed into the bar below.

That's 4... I haven't even been awake in this place for two days, and I've taken the life of four people. I mean sure it was out of defense, but it still doesn't feel right... This is gonna take a while to get used... Just push it down and deal with it later Rick. Thinking about this now will just get you killed.

As I snapped out of my thoughts, I heard a loud thump in Wrex's direction. We looked over to see one of the thugs had been tossed aside like a piece of paper into the wall, and he was slowly sliding down it, leaving a long smear of blood on the wall behind his head.

Looks like he messed with the wrong dinosaur... Ha. I should remember that line. Tell it to Wrex later, and hope he doesn't kill me. On second thought he probably will kill me. Deleting the comment from my memory...

I looked up from the broken body the Battlemaster had just tossed aside to see him walking towards the back still. As he approached the side where the Asari 'dancers' are usually giving their private shows, a man popped out from behind a column to shoot at Wrex. He made two mistakes: the first being firing at the enraged Krogan, while the second was fully exposing his entire body. Wrex lifted the shotgun he was using with one hand and fired at the man while he continued to press forward without even glancing in his direction, causing a large splash of blood to cover the wall and the now lifeless body to fall into a chair. If it wasn't for the blood that flowed out of the massive wound in his chest, it would've just looked like he was waiting for a dance.

"What's crawled up his ass?" I asked Kaidan, as the gunfire died down, leaving only echoes of a struggle that was taking place in the back part of the club.

"I don't know," he replied. "But we should probably give him a hand..."

"I doubt he needs one, but ok," I chuckled while we started jogging our way back to our comrade. As we progressed, I noticed the sheer carnage that had occurred in here. There were blood spurts on the walls, pools of it on the floor, and at least a half dozen un-moving bodies littered about. This wasn't counting the side Kaidan and I took care of. Wrex can really put in some work...

As we got closer, there were dull thuds and grunts that came from the small back room that lead to Fist's office. The closer we got, the louder the noises became until there was a loud crash and silence.

"Shit," Kaidan and I both muttered as our jog turned into a sprint to make sure that Wrex was alright. We rounded the corner to see him slowly bend down to pick up his weapon and turn to us.

If I didn't know any better, I'd say it looked like Wrex had gotten himself into a fist fight.

Heh. Fist fight. In Fist's bar. Punny... Damn it, I hate my brain sometimes... Anyway, back to Wrex: he had a small cut on his lower lip that a small amount of orange was seeping out of and what looked like the equivalent of a slightly swollen cheek on a Krogan. He looked like he fell and hit his head.

The Krogan bouncer, on the other hand, wasn't nearly as lucky. There was a small orange stain on the wall to the left of the hallway that lead to one of the large crates that were stored back here. Only the particular crate said stain led to was broken and had a massive hole it in. The hole was filled with the Krogan who had lost the fight. The upper half of his body was hidden in the crate, which was probably a good thing, while his stubby tail and legs hung out of the crate. A small stream of orange leaked down the bouncer's leg and started to pool at the bottom.

Kaidan and I stood there for a few seconds with our mouths agape as we surveyed the scene. Then we looked at Wrex.

He merely shrugged and said, "He pissed me off earlier..."

"Apparently..." Kaidan muttered. "C'mon. Don't you have a job to do?" he asked as he took lead into the next room.

Wrex just grunted.

We walked up to the door and opened it. It slid open revealing two workers with pistols trained on us and who were very obviously shaking.

"S-stop! Or... or we'll shoot!" the worker in front exclaimed.

Wrex raised his shotgun to show them his reply, but Kaidan brought his arm up to block the shot, signaling him to stand down.

Kaidan looked at them, and with a raspy and charming tone said, "Is protecting Fist really worth your life? Now I'm not quite sure about you guys, but I'd be looking for new employer right about now..." Guess somebody had to say it. Kaidan's a good guy and Shepard isn't here so...

"Y-yea... You're p-probably right..." the lead one stuttered as he made his way to leave the club.

As soon as they left, we pressed forward.

"Well that was awfully nice of you," I said as we continued to the door that would lead to Fist's office

"Yea... we should have killed them. What if they were faking it and bring reinforcements?" Wrex asked with a bit of annoyance in his voice.

"They won't be a problem," the Lieutenant replied. "They were average workers who got caught up in the middle of all this, not scummy thugs. Did you see how bad their arms were shaking? They never fired a pistol before."

"Whatever..." the Krogan grumbled.

As we opened the door to Fist's office, we heard the mechanical whirr of something revving up, probably the turrets, as well as a voice yelling, "You want something done, I guess you gotta do it yourself! Come and get some assholes!"

Wrex moved up the wall and peeked his head around only to instantly receive a hail of bullets bouncing off the wall in front of him as a greeting from the dual turrets.

"What're we up against Wrex?" I asked, mainly for Kaidan's benefit.

"Well..." he started, "there's Fist, but I'm more worried about the turrets on either side of him."

"Great. Any ideas Kaidan?" I asked, turning my head towards the sentinel.

An evil smirk drew across his face. "Yea, I think I have something..." he muttered as he brought up his Omni-tool. "I'm gonna throw out a sabotage pulse. I primed the radius to its max, so it should over-heat Fist's weapon as well as the turrets. Right after I throw it, concentrate fire on the turrets."

Wrex and I both nodded.

"Good, now get ready."

He brought up his biotic barrier for extra-protection in case the turrets managed to fire and ran out of cover, pistol in hand and aiming his Omni-tool in our foe's direction. As he bolted out into the open he dropped down into a slide which safely took him behind the safety of cover. A split-second later there was a bright red flash followed by a hissing sound. Wrex and I leaned out of cover and fired round after round at the turrets until they caught fire and exploded.

The shockwave and shrapnel disarmed Fist and knocked him to the ground where he lay hissing in pain.

We all lowered our weapons and approached the injured crime lord. As we grew closer, he tried to slide backwards away from us, but to no avail.

"Starting to rethink all those poor life choices Fist?" I asked.

"W-What do you want?" he whimpered

"Well, we were coming here to get info on the Quarian you set up, but that should be taken care of by now," Kaidan said as smooth as possible, emphasizing to him that we had the higher ground.

"Wait what? How did you know about that?" he asked in total surprise.

"Let's just say your employees could work on not talking about details in public places," I said with a grin.

"The Shadow Broker is... upset. You shouldn't have betrayed him," Wrex growled.

He reached out with the hand that wasn't clamping his abdomen to take hold of his desk and pull himself up into a kneel where he looked at us pleadingly. "I-I know. I made a mistake. Just please don't do anything rash. I'll give you anything you want if-"

Wrex interrupted him. "Good, then you won't mind if I take your life," he said as he fired a near point blank round from his shotgun into Fist's head, shearing a chunk of it off and sending blood, brain, and skull into the wall behind the now deceased owner's desk. Fist's body slumped over, lifelessly staring at us with the one eye he had left. That's gonna be hard to unsee...

"Jesus, Wrex! What the FUCK are you doing?!" Kaidan yelped as he jumped back a little.

"My job..." was the Krogan's simple reply.

"He was on his knees! Begging for his life! How could you just kill him?" he asked.

"Simple, I was paid to do it. I'm not in the habit of angering my employers, _especially_ when it's the Shadow Broker."

"He does have a point Kaidan," I interjected. "It makes sense. If killing Fist meant keeping the Shadow Broker from hunting us down for not finishing the job, why wouldn't he do it? Plus the man was trash: he was a low-life crime lord helping Saren get away with what he did on Eden Prime, and he was setting up innocent people to be killed. The Citadel's better off without him."

"Whatever..." Kaidan huffed angrily. "You guys obviously have your mind's made up already. It just bugs me to kill someone in cold blood. Obviously I'm the only one with a conscious here..."

"Hey now, I'm not saying I would've done it," I said a little bit heatedly. "I'm still new to this whole combat shit. I'm just saying it's pry better off with him gone. He woulda' gotten out of jail eventually and then all this would start up again. That would be good for nobody. Guess I'm just trying to be optimistic?"

"Look," Wrex said, "You two can keep bickering about it all day, but as to whether you approve of my actions or not, I really couldn't give a quad. I'm here to help Shepard stop that Turian bastard, Saren. I'm not here to make friends." He started walking towards the door

"Whatever, let's just get out here," Kaidan mumbled with a defeated sigh.

As we exited Fist's office, Wrex's Omni-tool lit up and Kaidan put a hand up to his helmet near his ear.

"Yea Commander I read you... You got the Quarian and the info? Good... Ok, we'll meet you in front of Dr. Michel's office in about ten minutes. Wait... Commander what about Rick? Understood, I'll bring him along. Kaidan out."

"What's the situation?" I asked

"The Commander found the Quarian, Tali I think she said her name was. She was right where you said she would be. Unfortunately, a bullet grazed her arm and punctured her suit so they had to take to Dr. Michel's clinic to get patched up. We're meeting them at the rapid trans out front of there in ten minutes."

"Well then, we better get moving," I said as we walked back towards the club. As we approached the carnage that we, and by we I mean mainly Wrex, had left in the front room, we heard whispers and the shuffles of movement.

"More reinforcements..." Kaidan heavily sighed while taking cover on a nearby crate.

"Looks like it..." I murmured. I almost forgot about these guys. Nooooo of course we can't just walk out of here. Naturally we have to kill all these people too...

"What are we waiting for?" Wrex asked as he brought out his shotgun. "They have a death wish, and my trigger finger is itching to grant it to 'em..."

An idea hit me. "Kaidan move, I might be able to get us out of here without firing another bullet..."

He complied. We switched spots so that I could clearly see out into the bar from the edge of the crate. I could see tips of heads, arms, and shoulders peeking out of cover where the thugs were hidden.

"Yo scumbags!" I yelled to get their attention.

"Come out here and die like a man!" a singular cocky voice yelled out from behind the bar. He must be the leader.

"I have a better idea. _If_ you're willing to listen that is..." I replied.

"And why should we listen to anything you have to say?"

"Because it's the only way you guys are gonna get out of this hell-hole alive!"

"Rick, are you sure this is a good idea?" Kaidan asked. "These types of negotiations never go ever well."

"It's worth a shot. I mean worse comes to worse we just shoot our way out of here like we were originally gonna do..." I whispered back to him before the arrogant voice sounded from the other side of the crate.

"Ha! Good one. Like you could _possibly_ take us all down!"

"Take a good look around, you delusional asshole! I'm sure you know how many people were here before you arrived don't you?"

"Yea, about twelve or fifteen. What's your point?"

"Point is... they're all dead now, or have you not noticed that little bit of info?" I yelled back with a sly grin on my face. "Now I don't know how many of you there are back there, but I feel like it's a safe bet to say it's not anywhere near the amount that were here to begin with..."

"Y-yea... S-so what?!" the man replied, both his voice and arrogance faltering.

"Well you see, there's only three of us..."

"Ah... I see now," Kaidan whispered to himself next to me as he put two and two together.

I continued. "So if the three of us can take down fifteen of Fist's best men, what makes you think you'll fare any better if there's less of you and you guys are just the back-up?"

There was a lull in the conversation. They were obviously thinking about it.

"And you're proposing what exactly?"

"Can we just kill them now?" Wrex's thundering voice mumbled from behind me.

I just shook my head and ignored him. "You let us walk out of here without any resistance, and we don't kill you all where you stand."

"What's in it for us besides our lives? Even if you don't kill us, Fist will after he finds out we just let you go."

"Fist's dead." Wrex said loudly from behind me, causing loud whispers to start up on the other side of us.

"He's right. Unless you guys feel like picking up the pieces of his brain from the floor and wall of his office and put him back together, he'll stay dead too. Plus I get the feeling that you're some of the last bits of his crew. Am I right?"

Silence.

"I'll take that as a yes. After we leave what's gonna stop you from, oh I don't know, taking Fist's resources and money and splitting them up among yourselves? Not like he's gonna give a damn. I doubt you guys were hanging out with Fist cause you like committing felonies. I can only assume the pay was good. So why don't you guys let us go peacefully? After we're outta here, maybe you can take a little vacation with the 'severance check' your boss so generously left behind. Maybe get your lives back on the right track? Just drop your weapons and don't try and stop us..."

"And what's to stop you from killing us all after we do?"

"Hey, my gun's been holstered this whole time," I lie while slapping it on its mag-lock and holding my empty hands out for everyone to see. "My companions are honorable enough to not go back on their word. Right?" I looked over to Kaidan to see a smirk on his face as he shipped his weapon. I then glanced over to Wrex to see him glaring daggers at me before he let out a heavy sigh and begrudgingly placed his shotgun back on its holster.

"Right," both Kaidan and Wrex said loudly for everyone else to hear.

"Fine... BOYS! Drop your weapons!" the stranger commanded. Soon after the clack of weapons hitting the ground greeted our ears.

We rounded the corner to see about five unarmed humans and a couple Turians standing out in the open. The one closest to us seemed to be a little on edge when we appeared as he must have been unsure as to whether or not we would honor the arrangement. Once he saw none of us had weapons drawn, however, he seemed to relax.

As we rounded the circular bar to the exit, I noticed that most of the men seemed relieved. They looked around at the massacre we had left behind and seemed grateful that their bodies did not add to the numbers. All looked this way except for the one woman of the group.

She stood out among the rest. First off, she was the only female in the group. Second, as we moved across the ruins of the club, she followed us with her eyes, giving us the evilest look she could muster. If looks could kill, the three of us would be dead and decomposed. The final thing that set her off, was that instead of relief, she seemed almost distraught at the turn the events had taken. Her bottom lip quivered ever so slightly, and the whites of her eyes were lightly pink tinted.

As I noticed this, we made eye contact, the pure hatred conveyed in her eyes sending shivers down my spine. I mean I would be angry too if the roles were reversed, but Jesus... This woman is seriously fucking pissed! Time seemed to freeze during our brief staring contest, and my senses absorbed the details of the fuming woman: deep auburn hair, bright green eyes, small rounded nose, pronounced jawline, and a petite rounded chin. The image was burned into my memory for a few seconds, and then time regained its normal pace.

I brushed off the feeling she gave as we neared our exit. I turned around, letting Kaidan and Wrex walk past the small barriers in front of the door before me. Once they were ahead of me I started to walk backwards and brought two fingers up to my head to give a little nod while I said "Pleasure doing business with ya!" The door closed in my face as soon as I passed the threshold.

I wheeled around to see Kaidan and Wrex standing against the railing with unreadable expressions and their arms crossed.

Kaidan was the first to speak as he pushed himself off the wall while uncrossing his arms. "Smooth talking kid. That coulda gotten messy."

"I do what I can," I replied with a cheesy grin.

"I'm not so sure giving them the resources to Fist's network was the best idea though.

"You saw them in there. Half of them didn't even wanna be there. There's not enough men or motivation from what I saw to restart the bar, let alone a secret crime network."

"I still say we shoulda killed them," Wrex huffed.

I crossed my arms and looked at him with an arched eyebrow. "Yea, well... I'm not a millennia old Krogan Battlemaster who probably started killing things before he could even walk..." I said sarcastically.

"That much is obvious. A strong warrior never _talks_ his way out of a fight..."

Yea, well fuck you too Wrex. "Look, today was the first time I killed anything. Ever. Unless you count the Geth, which I really don't. So pardon me if I wanted to keep my body-count low. I feel bad enough about it as is..." The charade of a calm demeanor that I had kept up for the entire assault faltered a little bit. "I can still see the faces..."

Kaidan put his hand on my shoulder. "The first few are always the worst..." he said reassuringly with a distant look in his eyes, as if he was remembering his first kills. "I'm not gonna say it gets easier over time, but you learn to not let it get to you... You'll be fine in a bit."

I quickly covered up my feelings and put back the wall from before. "Yea, you're right. Thanks," I replied with a lopsided grin.

"Pathetic..." Wrex mumbled as he trudged off alone with thundering steps back towards the alley that led to Dr. Michel's.

"He's hard to please..." I mumbled to Kaidan, picking up my backpack and heading towards the exit.

"He's actually one of the more agreeable Krogan I've met..." he said with a sigh. "C'mon, we don't have much time to chat."

With that we jogged off towards the clinic.

* * *

**A/N: Hey guys, sorry for the delay in updating. Finals have kinda been getting in the way and as much as I wanna update, school comes first. The other reason it took me a while is because this chapter wasn't exactly planned. It was brought to my attention that it seemed a bit odd Shepard would let a person she's suspicious about so easily join the Normandy, and after thinking about the kind of Shepard I was planning for this story, I had to agree. So yea this chapter lives up to it's name IRL as well, aha. **

**Hope you enjoyed it, and I hope the fighting came across a little more descriptive (can't say action scenes are easy to write, but I'm trying).**

**As always, feel free to send any criticism (whether it be good, bad, you love it, you hate it, a 'keep up the good work', or a 'for the love of all that is holy please stop writing') to me by leaving it in a review below or sending a PM. If this chapter proves anything it's that I take other's comments seriously.**

**If I don't get to post again for a while, I'd just like to wish all my followers and readers a Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year.**

**Rfalzar, signing out.**


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Settin' Sail

We made it to the clinic with relative ease, and we didn't run into any more people trying to kill us or any huge crowds, so that was a relief. Three fully armed commandos in the middle of a large group of assorted aliens would probably incite some panic, especially when one of them was a massive, still blood-stained Krogan.

Shepard and the team she had taken with her were waiting out in front of the hover-cabs when we arrived. Seeing as how there were seven of us, we took two cabs based on the squads we had just fought with. The ride to the Presidium wasn't super long, but it seemed like it was going to be fairly uneventful. The ride was basically silent at the beginning, probably from the tension of having Wrex in the cab. He didn't exactly... approve of me. Thankfully I sat in the back with Kaidan.

I kept thinking back to the fight at the bar, and every time my thoughts went back there, they seemed to linger either on the faces of the people I had killed or on that of the woman who's image I couldn't seem to forget. The lifeless expressions of the people from the bar flashed before my eyes, like some old family vacation slide show, only instead of pictures of boring things they were doing that nobody really cared about, it was filled with death. The mental picture show ended with the woman's pissed off stare, almost accusing me for all the pointless loss of life that we had caused.

I can't let this bug me. Just need something to get my mind off of this, like... well anything really. I turned to look out the window in hopes that the scenery would distract me. I shook my head to clear my thoughts, which apparently got Kaidan's attention.

"You alright?" he asked, turning his head in my direction.

"Yeah just a headache is all..." I lied.

"I feel ya... It feels like I have the beginnings of a migraine coming on. Hopefully it won't get too bad."

"You get those often?

"Unfortunately..."

"Well, my condolences. I've had a few in my life, and they're definitely not the most pleasant experience..."

"Understatement of the century..." he chuckled.

"So why do you think Shepard wanted me to come along?"

"Only she could tell you, but I'm assuming it has something to do with helping her find that Quarian." He looked out the window. "Looks like you'll get a chance to ask her yourself. We're about to land near the embassies."

Right as he said that, the cab started to slow and get closer to the ground. After it finished its descent, we all piled out of the car. This was the first time I was seeing the Presidium, and it was far more grand than pixels on a screen could ever portray. The trees, the lake, the sound of running water, all of it contributed to give a feeling of peace and calm. Too bad I knew what a bureaucratic shit house it really was. That kinda ruins the peacefulness of the place...

Back to more important things that aren't sight-seeing... We followed Shepard and the people with her because she arrived a little bit before us. We walked through the main lobby of the embassies and up the stairs, straight into the Ambassador's office to see Anderson and Udina in the middle of a conversation. As soon as the door opened both of the elderly men turned to face us. I decided to stay closer to the door, so I leaned up against the wall nearby and crossed my arms, Wrex and Garrus blocking me from view.

Anderson walked over to give the Commander a firm handshake. "Shepard!" he exclaimed. "I take it you found what you needed?" he asked with a hopeful smile.

She returned the grin, "As a matter of fact I did. Tali here-"

"Yes Shepard," Udina interrupted. Ah yes... Udina. The Presidium's biggest asshole. Well, next to the Turian Councilor that is. I'm sure this meeting will be a pleasure...

"I hope what you found was worth it," he continued. "You haven't been making my life easy Shepard. Firefights in the Wards, an all out assault on Chora's Den... Is there anywhere you can go without killing something?"

I laughed a bit to myself.

Udina's head popped up between Wrex and Garrus, causing them to move aside.

"I'm sorry, but did I say something amusing?" he asked, looking at me with an angry glare. It was then that Anderson also noticed me and his brows furrowed a little bit.

"Well yea, actually you did," I chuckled. "Shepard's out there trying to get information that could be vital to the human race as a whole, and you're more concerned with her methods because it makes life 'a little harder' for you? You poor thing."

"I don't know who you think you are," Udina growled, "but I am an _ambassador_ and I _will_ be treated with respect. Why are you even here?"

He then looked around at the rag-tag team Shepard had brought together, confusion racking his face.

"In fact, why are half of these people here? Shepard, why did you bring me a _Krogan_ thug, a failure of a _Turian_ C-Sec officer, a _Quarian_, and this young, mercenary-wannabe _punk_?" He spit out the races of the gathered crew as if they were insults. None of us looked happy to be there.

"Well Udina," Shepard started, visibly pissed, "if you shut your damn mouth every once in a while instead of jumping down my throat maybe I could have told you that they're here because they all helped me get the information on Saren. As far as I'm concerned they've all done more than you did to help resolve this..."

"How _dare_ you Shepard! I've been -"

"Enough! We're not here to argue, we're here to take down Saren! Now is not the time for petty arguments," Anderson interrupted.

"Sorry Captain, I've never had much patience for politicians..." Shepard said while shooting a glare in the ambassador's direction. "What matters is the evidence. Tali, can you play the recording you found for us?"

"Of course," the Quarian replied. She brought up her Omni-tool and played the all too familiar recording of Saren and Benezia.

"_Eden Prime was a major victory. The beacon has brought us one step close to finding the Conduit._"

Despite the fact that I've heard this many times over, it was still somehow unnerving. Something about his voice made the whole thing way scarier in reality than it could ever be in a video game. The recording also seemed to lift most of the tension in the room, causing Udina to forget his previous anger.

"That's Saren's voice!" Anderson exclaimed. That lead into the long conversation between everybody about how Tali came across the recording, the questions about Quarian customs from Shepard, and the revelation of a second voice on the recording. I mainly tuned it out. I could guess how it was going to go down. I still listened in case somebody talked to me, but I didn't really _listen_ if that makes any sense. In one ear and out the other they say.

"I will take this evidence to the Council right away. Meet me in the Council Chambers in one hour. That should be enough time to prepare," Udina commanded as he hurriedly left the room.

Shepard turned to face us. "Alright, no sense in all of you waiting around for this trial. Kaidan, Tali, you're with me. Ash, I'm gonna need you to lead our new crew members to the docking bay the Normandy is at."

"Can do Commander," she replied while saluting.

"Good. I'll see you all on the ship."

Everyone turned to leave, making their way through the sliding door. I was closest to it, but decided to let everybody go first. Guess I'm a gentleman. I pushed myself off of the wall and turned for the door only to be stopped by a firm grip on my shoulder.

"NOT you..." Shepard stated. Pry shoulda known it wouldn't be this easy. Never is. Good thing I counted on this.

"Ok... Can I ask why?"

"I let you help earlier, but what I said still stands. I need to know your background to be positive that I can trust you," she said, no emotion in her voice.

"I'm with the Commander on this one," Anderson agreed. "I can't say I trust you either, but I'll defer to Shepard's judgement on this one. She's spent more time with you."

The door slid behind me and I sighed. "I suppose you won't believe that I'm a time and/or dimension traveler from 2012 with I.D. to prove it?"

"No," they said simultaneously.

Well, at least she can't play the why-didn't-you-tell-me-the-truth card later down the road. I tried. I really did. Welp, time to see if my scheming in Chora's Den paid off.

"Didn't think so... Well everything I told you before was true: my family was trying to move to Eden Prime, I was the only one to survive, and I did crash on the colony. What I didn't tell you was what lead up to it."

They said nothing, so I continued. "I was on Earth. I was just a normal college student trying to become a doctor, nothing extraordinary at all. I thought that my parents were just executives. It explained why they went on trips a lot and why we moved frequently. Never stayed in one city for more than five years. Had to relocate every so often to make it easier to stay in touch with clients. We were fairly well-off. One day they came home, charged through the door, threw a bag at me packed full of stuff, led me to a small ship I didn't even know we had, and then we took off. Needless to say we were all shaken up..." I paused for a second to recollect my thoughts, Anderson and Shepard still attentive.

"Once we settled on the ship and my parents calmed me down from everything that was happening, they explained what they really were. Spies. Well technically my mom wasn't. She was before but then she met my dad through espionage work. They started their own operation. My dad stayed as a spy while my mom became his info broker. Over time it spread and grew larger. Obviously not as big as the Shadow Broker or anything. Big enough to be successful, but not big enough to draw unwanted attention. Until then at least. Apparently my mom had received a lead for some highly sensitive info, but she didn't know that at the time. My dad went to do what he did best, and he got out without a hitch. On the way back whilst rifling through the info, he uncovered a tracer program layered deep underneath everything. It hacked into his Omni-tool. It got all our personal information. We were compromised. Then that pretty much leads up to where I met you guys."

They stood there silent for a minute, mentally going over what I had just told them. Please let this story I made up work...

"You keep digging a bigger hole kid," Shepard muttered. "I appreciate the honesty, but you're a spy. Spies can't be trusted."

"Shepard, I'm not a spy. My parents kept me out of that life to protect me. I honestly am... well, was an average college kid."

"Then why couldn't I find you in any records?" Anderson asked.

"As I said, my parents' network was large. There were some powerful contacts, one of which we called for a favor. He was going to erase our old lives and provide us with new ones. He must've done it considering I'm a ghost now

"Even if I do believe that," Anderson said, "why would we want you on the Normandy? I know why you want to be on the Normandy, but a quest for vengeance could end up hurting the mission."

"It wasn't really vengeance. Yes, I wanna make the Geth pay, but I'm not ignorant. Saren is the bigger threat. As for why you should want me, Kaidan can attest that I can handle my own in a firefight."

"Against common street thugs," Anderson stated rather harshly. "From what Shepard says, the Geth proved more troublesome on Eden Prime."

"And that was my first firefight!" I replied somewhat heatedly while raising my voice. Calm down, anger won't help this.

"Look," I continued with a sigh, "I'm good with a gun and a quick learner so combat won't be too problematic...hopefully, but I have something more valuable than an extra gun."

"Which would be what?" Shepard asked, one eyebrow raised higher than the other.

"Information," I simply stated. "My parent's may be gone, but their resources aren't. Resources that I have access to, and they could prove invaluable in this hunt for Saren."

That got their attention. They both quickly glanced at each other, mentally conversing. To be honest, the spy story wasn't exactly my go-to option. I was hoping I could just get on the crew with my combat skills, but that's not exactly working. This let's me make the best out of this whole 'I'm-in-a-game-now-situation' because I can use my game knowledge now.

"You have all of your parent's resources?" Anderson asked.

"Yes, all the resources and all of the agents who are currently on hiatus right now are mine now. I don't know where we'll be heading, but given enough forewarning, I can have an agent scope out an area ahead of time or see what info that may have already been gathered on it."

"As the Alliance, we have our own information network. Why would we need yours?" the Captain asked.

"I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say your network can't do what mine can. You have rules and regulations you have to follow so humanity as a whole doesn't get screwed over. I don't. Not to say I'm gonna be an amoral ass with this network, but I get the feeling I can get things done faster and with less paperwork..."

The two Alliance members shared a look with each other again.

"We'll discuss it and let you know," Anderson said. "For now, head to docking bay D24. The Normandy is housed there. You won't be able to get in, so just wait for us. We'll be there after the hearing to let you know what we decided."

"That's about as much as I can ask for," I reply. "Good luck with the hearing." And with that, I left the embassy to head for the nearby rapid trans station. I don't think I could hide the smile on my face if I wanted to.

I can't believe that actually worked! I think I'm gonna be able to help Shepard! At least I hope so. Please let me have been a good salesman for that total lie I made up because if this fails, I don't think anything will work. Only thing I can do now is head to the Normandy and wait.

* * *

"...ick? Rick?" I vaguely hear somebody say. Then there's a light pushing on my shoulder. "C'mon wake up."

My eyes wearily open to see Shepard kneeling next to me with a smirk on her face, Anderson standing a few feet away with his arms crossed shaking his head, and Udina a few feet away from him wearing his perpetual scowl with his arms behind his back.

When the hell did I fall asleep? I arrived at the docking bay and then sat down against the railing to wait for them to get done with the hearing. Must've passed out soon after. Guess combat is kinda tiring? Must be cause it's definitely not comfortable where I'm sitting.

"Mornin'... What time is it?" I tiredly ask while yawning.

"It's been about an hour and a half since we talked to you last," Anderson replied.

I stood up. "I see..." I guess I was kinda disappointed. I was still tired and was hoping I had rested longer. Oh well. "How'd the hearing go?"

"Better than we could have hoped!" Udina replied, finally smiling a tiny bit. "That bastard Saren is no longer a Spectre..."

"But I am," Shepard interjected, smirk still on her face.

I put on my best fake surprised face. "You're a Spectre? No... I'll be dead from old age before the council puts a human in the Spectres... Right?"

"Wrong," she said with a laugh. "They made me the first Human Spectre with my first assignment being to take Saren down.

"That's fantastic Shepard! Congratulations!" I exclaimed. Thank God for all the social interactions I've been thrust into where I've had to pretend to like it. Like I'm genuinely happy for her, but I can't say I'm surprised. I knew it was gonna happen, but I can't let them know that.

"Thank you," she replied. "On a more serious note, we've decided on what we're going to do with you..."

Gulp. "Verdict?"

Anderson stepped into explain. "The Commander here needs a ship to chase down Saren. I relinquished control of the Normandy to her. It's for the best. Seeing as how it's her ship now, I left it up to her. Commander?"

"You're on the team...," she said.

Now I'm actually excited. A smile instantly came over my face.

"But there's a catch," she added. Confusion replaced my smile. "You're Alliance now."

"What? Why?" I asked.

"If I let you join as a freelancer you'd answer only to yourself. Yea you'd follow my orders on missions, but there was nothing to stop you from doing whatever you want on the ship. It's kind of a trust thing. Now that you're officially Alliance, if you leak anything vital to the mission or the Alliance as a whole, you'd face repercussions, which in this case would be incredibly severe. Besides that, it establishes your identity. You have the same name but we created everything else for you. You should memorize it so you don't compromise yourself to your enemies in the future."

"Thanks, I think?"

"It was the only way we could do this and feel safe. There was no doubt the info you could provide would be useful, and this way our secrets stay secret as well."

"Ok, I guess. As long as I get to help..." Yeesh they're paranoid. I guess they have reason to be though. Whatever, not like I could leak secrets anyhow.

"We'll send you the information and I.D. to your Omni-tool shortly," Anderson said. "Head on in to the Normandy. It's gonna be your new home for a while now so you should start getting to know people. We still have a few things to discuss."

"Sure, I'll let you three have some privacy," I replied. I turned to walk to the Normandy. As I headed down the ramp to the airlock, I got my first good look at the Normandy. Each time I saw it from outside before I had either been swept up in the chaos or to caught up in thought to truly appreciate what was before me. This is _the _Normandy. An icon to Mass Effect fans everywhere. And I get to fly around in it. This is gonna be awesome!

I stepped into the airlock and hardly noticed the lengthy decontamination process. I didn't care. I was too excited. I finally got to be on the Normandy and not as a prisoner this time. The inside airlock opened, and I stepped forward. I just kind of stood there looking down the hall to the galaxy map. I didn't see this level the last time I was here. It looked exactly like it did in the game, only slightly larger, I think. People walked past me while they did their jobs. I'm sure I was a sight. Everyone rushing around and here I am just standing there with my mouth undoubtedly wide open.

The PA suddenly came on. "Um... Security? Are you guys even awake? Some random guy just walked in here. Care to actually do your jobs?"

That was Joker's voice. What intruder is there? I'm the only one who walked in here recently... Shit. I then heard some commotion coming from the other side of the ship. Damn it.

I ran up to Joker's seat, and he shrunk in his chair a little bit.

"Look man, I don't know who you are, but I'm just the pilot. I'm not gonna do anything. Just leave and we won't have any trouble."

"No, no, no, I'm supposed to be here. I'm a new addition to the crew like everyone else," I said to him. I turned around to see see two marines come up from the lower level with Avengers in hand.

"Everyone who was supposed to be on the ship is already here. Plus there wasn't any human name on the list," Joker replied as the two marines neared us.

"Check your Omni-tool again. I was just allowed on here. I'm sure Shepard messaged ahead."

The two armed marines finally reached us. "Put your hands up, and step away from the pilot!" the lead marine yelled.

Ugh... this would only happen to me. I complied, trying to be as calm as I could with two Avengers pointed right at me only a few feet away. Fun fact: it's not easy to stay calm with two full auto assault rifles aimed at you point blank.

"L-Look guys, I'm supposed to be here. I'm a uh... _very_ recent addition to the team. Just um... Just go ask the Commander. She's the one who authorized my presence," I tell them rather shakily.

Right after I said that, the airlock opens and Shepard is standing right there. Speak of the devil.

Upon seeing the situation right outside the airlock, her brows furrow and confusion settles on her face.

"What the hell is going on here? Stand down marines!" she orders.

"Commander this man somehow got onto the-" the lead security guard tried to say.

"I said stand-down!" she ordered again. "I let him on the ship. How do you think he got here? You all should have received a message."

The two marines lowered their weapons. "Sorry Commander, we didn't get any notice."

Shepard pinched the bridge of her nose with her fingers and sighed. "It's... fine. Just know he's welcome here. Return to your duties."

They both saluted, gave an 'Aye, Aye,' and walked back down towards the galaxy map.

"Sorry about that," she said looking at me. "On the bright side, security's on the ball around here..."

"Yea..." I said, rubbing the back of my neck.

"I had the rest of the team gather in the CIC. It's right behind the galaxy map. I'll join you guys shortly. Just gotta have a chat with Joker here first."

"Will do Commander," I said as I walked away. I moved past the galaxy map and into the CIC where everyone else was waiting. They were all waiting in the seats when I arrived. They all looked up, most likely expecting to see the Commander, but went back to their own thing when they saw it was me.

Looks like the only seat left is between Garrus and Wrex. I'm sure there's a saying about never getting between a Krogan and Turian somewhere. Don't really have a choice though.

About a minute passed before Shepard gave her signature speech over the PA. Despite the fact that I've heard it a few hundred times before, it still gave me the chills. She chose the paragon speech as well. That's good news. Looks like she's mainly just a hard-ass on the battlefield, or maybe she's just in a good mood with the whole becoming-the-first-Human-Spectre thing. Who knows? About another minute passed and Shepard walked in causing both Ashley and Kaidan to stand up and salute.

"At ease," Shepard commanded. "You guys know I'm not big on formalities on the ship. Just in public. Ok, most of you all know each other, but just in case, we're gonna do a quick run through, starting with Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko, Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams, Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, Garrus Vakarian, Urdnot Wrex, and Corporal Rick O'Connor. All of you have a unique skill set that will prove invaluable to this mission. We'll have briefings after every mission we go on and another an hour before each mission. For those of you used to running your own operations, I'll be in charge while you're on this ship. I hope that won't be a problem. Any objections?"

Nobody said anything.

"Good. Now as you all know we're pursuing the rogue, Turian Spectre, Saren Arterius. We have a couple leads on where to go next, but I want your opinions on where we're going first. You guys are gonna be fighting it out with me so I'd value your input. Apparently Matriarch Benezia, Saren's second in command, has a daughter. Her name is Dr. Liara T'Soni and she's a Prothean expert. We need to get to her and find out what she knows about her mother's activities with Saren. The only lead we have is that she is somewhere in the Artemis Tau Cluster. Second, Alliance command has lost contact with a small remote colony named Zhu's Hope on the planet of Feros out in the Theseus System of the Attican Beta. Scouting reports we have from them indicate a Geth presence. Finally, I was told that Saren has major investments in Binary Helix, a company based off of Noveria. We need to go there and investigate what he's been doing. Thoughts?"

Wrex spoke up first, "As long as I get to fight I could give a damn..." Well that helps.

Ashley chimed in next, "We need to go to Feros, those colonists could be in danger if the Geth are pushing into the colony."

Kaidan next, "I agree with Ashley. We don't need another Eden Prime..." Good point.

A little bit of silence...then Garrus broke it, "I'm all for Noveria. Everything about it sounds fishy to me. Just call it a gut feeling that we need to get it out of the way first." He would pick my least favorite mission first wouldn't he?

My turn to voice my opinion, "I say we find Benezia's daughter. Yes everything else is important, especially the colonists," looking at Ash, Kaidan, and Shepard for emphasis considering her history, "but we'd be walking in blind. There's a chance that Dr. T'Soni could have information on Saren's activities which could prove invaluable on Feros and Noveria where he's most likely involved."

Everyone was silent for a while. I don't know why but I always got Liara first when I played. She was one of my favorite characters, plus Therum is one of the least annoying missions, unlike Noveria. I know Liara doesn't know anything, but there's a chance that she does. Canon could be screwed up with me being here after all, so its worth a shot. "Plus," I spoke up again, "She might be able to help Shepard make sense of the vision from the Prothean beacon..." It seems like that point hit home a little bit.

After about a minute of silence, Tali's voice came into the conversation. "I agree with the Corporal. As much as I love going in blind against a rogue Spectre, we need to get as much information on our enemy as possible and T'Soni could have this information."

"Well it looks like we have a tie between Feros and Artemis Tau, so it's up to me to break the tie... Artemis Tau it is. If I don't get help with these visions I won't be any help to the colonists on Feros. Any help would be welcome at this point." With that, she stood up and moved towards the center of the room and activated her omni-tool. A mini galaxy map projected from the ceiling. "Ok, the only problem with this mission is that we don't know what cluster or planet she's on," she said as she brought up the cluster we needed to go to. "There are four systems in this cluster: Athens, Knossos, Macedon, and Sparta."

Ah, fuck I always forget which one Liara's in. My gut always went Macedon first, but it was always wrong. Knossos sounds familiar so let's go with that.

"My gut's telling me Knossos commander. Research the planets there first. After she looked over the planets, Shepard highlighted and enlarged Therum. Good. I guessed right. "Strong call Corporal. The only planet in this system that has a habitable atmosphere is this one, Therum. There also appears to be Prothean ruins on this one, so it's our best bet. Joker!"

The PA kicked in, "Yes, commander?"

"Plot a course to the planet Therum in the Knossos system of the Artemis Tau Cluster."

"Aye, Aye Commander...It looks like it'll take roughly 28 hours to get there."

"Good job, Joker. Tali, Wrex, Ashley, and Rick, you'll be accompanying me on the recovery team. Ground team is expected to report an hour before arrival to go over tactics. You can get ready after that. We'll be leaving in thirty. Dismissed. Corporal, stay behind, I need to speak with you."

Everyone filed out of the room, but I remained seated. Once we were alone, she walked up to me.

"Therum is a bit too short notice to get any reports on, but I want you to get agents into Noveria and Feros so we know what we're going up against."

"Can do Commander," I reply.

"Also, just a little info on your status in the Alliance. Usually you'd come in as a Private, but anyone lower than Corporal is restricted to the ship during ground missions. I want you on the ground team. While you're technically just a Corporal, you're getting what our espionage agents get paid. I'm not sure how much it is, but it's no small sum. You'll be receiving daily payment as well as mission completion bonuses."

"That sounds great. Better than what I was getting paid before at least. Which was a whole whopping nothing."

She chuckled. "Good. Next I need you to report to the shuttle bay for training."

"Training?"

"Non-negotiable. You may handle yourself well against gangsters, but Geth aren't gangsters. As you know, they're highly trained and dangerous. Brent Effinger is our resident rook trainer. Hardly anyone actually passes, but everybody who goes through it comes out far more competent. Once your training is complete, report to Dr. Chakwas in the Med-Bay for your standard check-up. We need to know what kind of shape you're in for the missions. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to make a call."

"Will do Commander," I said with a lazy salute as I walked to the door. Right before I left, Shepard started to say something, prompting me to turn back around.

"You know..." She said with a lopsided grin, "Now that you're officially Alliance, I'm not gonna pull any punches when it comes to orders, so you better be as fast of a learner as you say you are."

"Didn't realize you were holding back before Commander," I said with a smile. "I'll see you later." Time to train.

* * *

**A/N: Holy super long update time Batman! Couldn't have said it better myself Robin, and for that I apologize. I know I said every two weeks, but real life has a tendency to screw with my plans. I planned on writing a lot over my break, but I couldn't. For people following this story, remember how I've mentioned that the universe hates Rick? Yeah, we have that in common. It is an S/I after all. First, I went out of town and had no internet access for a while, which wasn't a problem, cause I could still write, right? Wrong. My laptop refused to take a charge. Fixed that, then my charger broke just because apparently. Then when I finally was back home for internet access, my IP decides to stop providing me with internet. This is literally the first I could write and publish anything. Hope you'll all forgive me, and as always feel free to leave any thoughts in a review below.**

**On the bright side, I had a lot of free time. A lot of which was spent brainstorming ideas for this or playing Dishonored or Far Cry 3, both of which are fantastic games. If you're looking for a game to play, I highly recommend them.**

**More good news, I should have Chapter 5 up by the end of the day? Hopefully? If not, then early next morning.**

**Rfalzar, Signing off**

**P.S. I'm still looking for betas, so if anybody is interested, feel free to send a P.M.**


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5: No Way But the Hard Way**

From the CIC I made my way to the elevator to take me down to the shuttle bay. Should I stop at Chakwas' first? Nah. She'll probably just give me a shot or something. I hate needles. Still want a tattoo though... Yay for being a walking conundrum!

I stepped into the elevator and hit the button to take me down to the hangar. About a minute passed and I was still in the elevator. Another minute. Really? I'm going down one floor. Oh well. Wait... what's this? I thought the Normandy was only the two floors? Or three floors depending on how you consider it? Here there's a button between the shuttle bay and the floor I was just on labeled... Crew Quarters. Oh thank God! I don't think I could stand one of those sleeper pods. I'll take a bed any day, even it is most likely an uncomfortable one. How am I still not in the shuttle bay yet?

Naturally right as I started humming elevator music to myself to make it more entertaining, the door opens.

Thats about par for the course I suppose...

I walked over to the station where Ashley usually is to see a marine with short, dark gray hair, hazel eyes, and pronounced facial features messing with a standard Avenger assault rifle. Above him was a wall filled with weapons of all types and models. Looks like more than the standard two variations that were present during the first game. Well yea, there were more than two models. There were an assload of guns in the first game but it was either modeled after the Avenger or the Vindicator, only difference was what natural disaster they were named after.

In fact I saw things that look like they should be from the third game. Granted I didn't unlock them all, I saw a few that I recognized. As I approached the table, the man turned to greet me. "I take it you're Corporal O'Connor? Gunnery Sergeant Brent Effinger. I'm here to train you, so let's get to it."

"Nice to meet you too..." I replied. Looks like this is gonna be a treat...

"First things first: shooting practice. What weapons you interested in?" Straight to the point. Good.

"Well, I have an assault rifle and pistol already, but I was looking to get some practice with a sniper rifle. Kinda new to all this firefight stuff so I figured I'd keep my distance."

"Yea... that's great. Just pick something off the rack and shoot at the target I set up for you over there. Concussive rounds only. I gotta finish setting up the damn training exercise," Brent said. He doesn't sound too pleased...

"Did I do something to piss you off?" I asked.

"One, I'm still you're superior officer and you will address me with respect. Two, It's nothing personal, I just didn't exactly plan on doing rook training on such short notice. It's a pain in the ass to set up. Just go shoot the target."

"Sorry, I guess that does kinda suck..." I replied, kind of regretting asking at this point. This guy is doing me a favor after all. Even if it was an order.

"Don't worry about it. Just pick a sniper and practice with it. I'm assuming you can handle your other weapons ok for right now, but I still wanna see how you use them."

"Yes sir," I said with a salute.

I then walked over to the rack near the workbench and started looking through the weapons. What to choose, what to choose...Hmmm... Well I could try the Mantis. That's a reliable one. There's the Viper too. Packs less of a punch but I can get multiple shots off, which might be useful in the long run. Don't recognize that one, so I'll pass on it... Hello, what do we have here? An N7 Valiant? Yes please. Mantis stopping power with less recoil and I can get multiple shots off before over-heating? Definitely beats my other options.

As I was inspecting the sniper, I noticed a few round things on the table. "What are these?"

"Flash-Bangs. Take a few. I'm sure they'll be useful in your later missions."

"How'd you guys get a valiant?" I asked while still inspecting the weapon.

"Shepard's N7. She gets N7 equipment. Simple as that. Target practice time." Brent replied while pointing to some crates on the other side of the hangar. Apparently he had set up targets right in front of the Mako, with crates next to the armory for me to take cover by. "Take cover on those crates. When you switch weapons, switch targets so we can check your proficiency on each. Shoot until it overheats and then switch."

I walked over to the crates, crouched down and prepared myself. I started with the phalanx, pulling it off the magnetic holster, popping out of cover, and firing down range. The first few missed, but then I remembered the recoil and hit the rest of the target around center mass, with a couple hitting the head just to switch it up. Overheat.

I switched to the vindicator, propped it up against my shoulder, aimed, and fired down range. My precision with the rifle was still as good as it was on the Citadel. I switched between the fire settings just to stay used to it and to show my proficiency with each. I was about to switch to the sniper to see how it was but then I remembered he said fire until it overheated. What the hell? I put the rifle on full-auto, pointed the rifle down range, and unloaded a hail of bullets towards the target, or what used to be the target. Now it's just kind of a dented and deformed piece of metal.

Moving on to the valiant. The sniper unfolded, I got in shooting stance, and took aim. Ok... mentally prepare for the recoil so you don't lose control, deep breath... exhale... fire. Straight into what would've been the head. Fuck yea. I fired two more times, both shots hitting their mark. I'm actually surprised at the recoil. It's much lower than what I was expecting for such a powerful sniper. No more than what I was used to firing at least.

I turned to Brent, "So, how'd I do?" I asked with a cocky grin on my face.

"Not bad rook. Looks like I won't be spending my entire shore leave training your incompetent ass. Just most of it," he replied while turning away

Dick... "Well what's next then? I kinda just aced the target practice."

"Well since you seem so confident, I think we'll skip moving target practice and go straight into armor functions, cover-vaulting, and a practice firefight. With concussive rounds of course." Why do I not like that evil smirk he's giving? Is that why not many people pass the test? I'm gonna get shot. A lot. Yayyy...

For the next hour, he gave a run-down on the basics of my new armor: what to do with it, what not to do, where to attach a shield generator, how to quickly and effectively switch weapons on magnetic holsters, how to read the HUD, and a little run through on the types of damage it could withstand. He followed that up with the proper way to take cover, how to easily and properly switch from cover to cover, and how to vault over cover without falling flat on my face. Then it was time for the firefight...

Brent led me to the side of the shuttle bay with all the armor lockers on it, and popped a hatch open. As he pressed a few buttons, the floor behind us opened up, revealing a huge thing of crates stacked to different heights. As I examined it, it appeared to be in the shape of a maze with an entrance on either side of it.

My first thoughts? 'Holy shit since when can the floor open up on this thing?' and 'Why the hell is there a massive crate maze underneath us?'

"As you can see," Brent said, "I've set up a small labyrinth of crates of different sizes and shapes to help with your training. We're gonna go down there and have a mock firefight. If you can get through this, you can get through most real firefights. Switch your weapons to concussive rounds and we'll see how you do. All you have to do is land one shot on me. Gimme a holler when you're all set." He jumped down to the far side of the maze and was out of sight. Guess that leaves me with this side. Why do I get the feeling this is gonna hurt a lot?

"Ready!" I yelled.

"Ok, just sit tight! Gotta take care of something real quick!" he yelled back.

The P.A. kicked on. "Ladies and gentleman of the Normandy, may I have your attention please?" That's Brent's voice. What is he doing? Why does he sound so happy all of a sudden?

"I would just like to cordially invite you to the training session in the shuttle bay that I'm having with the rookie, Corporal Rick O'Connor." Fuck.

"You will all have seats above us, so everyone can enjoy the show. The show will commence in promptly ten minutes. Thank you." Of course this would happen. Now everybody gets to watch me have my ass kicked.

"You know, you could have told me this was going on!" I yelled to the Gunnery Sergeant.

"Where's the fun in that though?! This way it's a surprise!" he replied.

Over the next ten minutes, people flooded into shuttle bay. Hopefully they were all non-essential personnel and people I wouldn't have to interact with... Shepard was sitting on the edge of the opening in the floor with her legs dangling over. The rest of the ground team was assembled around her, all with smirks on their faces.

"Shepard, you coulda told me this was gonna happen!" I said to her.

"And ruin the surprise? That's half the fun!" she replied with a laugh. Why does everyone think this is fun? I highly doubt it's gonna be fun. Probably the exact opposite of fun.

"Gee... thanks Commander."

"Anytime rook! I went through this too, you'll be fine. Sergeant Effinger trained me and look how I turned out." That's comforting... I think.

"Oh, and just FYI, we started a betting pool on the victor. I'm one of the few people with credits on you, so don't disappoint," she said with humor gone in her voice. Wonderful. This just keeps getting better.

"Wait? Everyone's betting against me?"

Garrus who was sitting right by her responded. "Yeah, she showed us vids of Effinger doing this before. He's good."

"Should be a good show," Wrex mumbled from behind him.

"Just try not to get shot too much ok?" Ashley asked with a smirk

"Don't worry Rick, you can do this! I saw you fight in Chora's Den, you got this!" Kaidan added.

"Kaidan, you bet on me?"

"_Hell _no! I'm supportive not stupid!" That got a laugh out of everyone, while I just sighed and rubbed my forehead. This is gonna be terrible...

The P.A. kicked on again. "Ok everybody, time to get this show on the road!" The crowd cheered and hollered. "As always, rules are the same! The Corporal here has exactly one hour to land at least one shot on me. If he does that, he wins. If not, I win! Now I know you've all placed bets, so custom dictates that a sound proof barrier will be erected so nobody gives either of us any advice. As soon as that's up, we will start!" More hollers and cheers sounded.

The shimmering blue barrier closed the opening above us and a large countdown was displayed on it, counting down from 60 minutes.

Ok...treat this just like the Geth on Eden Prime and you'll be fine. Well mostly fine. I mean I mostly survived. Bad comparison I guess. Do _better_ than Eden Prime. Ok, I think he's over in that direction. I barely popped my head up when I heard a bang and a concussive shot rammed into my head and knocked me over. "Rule number one rook! Keep your head down!" Brent yelled out.

OOOOOOOWWWWWWW... Ok, I'm gonna have a MASSIVE headache later. I laid on the ground for a little while. I think I learned my lesson, however. I feel like that would've been enough to knock most people out. Thank God I have a hard head. Ok, let's do this.

_**Shepard POV**_

The gathered crowd let out a collective grimace and a "Ohhhhhhh..." when the Corporal was drilled in the head with a concussive round.

Well there goes my credits... Guess he won't be ready for the mission on Therum. Wait, he's getting up. Kid's tougher than he looks. Let's see if he can pull this off.

I watched as he tried to round the corner only to be greeted by rifle fire hitting his armor. Kid needs to watch his cover better. He progressed through the maze, walking across an aisle and was greeted with more rifle fire. His cover taking and switching methods were sloppy and careless. It didn't help that Effinger set this thing up and had a bead on him no matter where he maneuvered.

It progressed this way for close to forty minutes, the crowd making comments on each soldiers technique as time went on. It was definitely entertaining. Rick slowly got better at staying in cover. Most of Effinger's shots missed him as he learned to stay down and swat run or roll into new cover. It kept this skirmish interesting. I'm impressed he's learning this fast. Guess there was some truth to what he said.

"So... you think Rick can actually pull this off?" Garrus asked. He was sitting to my right.

"It doesn't matter if I do. What matters is if he believes he can pull it off," I replied.

"True enough. But still, do you make it a habit to bet on the guy with the odds against him?"

"Yea Shepard, every time I've served with you in the past, hell even the brief time we knew each other at basic, you've always sided with the underdog. Why is that?

"I don't know. Guess I've always considered myself the underdog, and I know it helps knowing somebody has your back."

"Makes sense I suppose..." He started to say. Garrus and Kaidan started conversing. I didn't pay much attention. I zoned out and my thoughts flashed back to brief yet terrible images from Mindoir and Akuze. I shook my head to clear my mind. How could I not consider myself the underdog with everything I'd been through? I've survived things most people wouldn't and gone through things most people couldn't. And I came out a stronger person because of it. Doesn't mean I wish it didn't happen, but being the underdog shaped me... Coming out of nowhere and defying the odds is what I do best. Hope the newbie can do the same.

"...Shepard?" Garrus asked, finally snapping me back to reality.

"Yea, what is it?" I ask shaking my head.

"Looks like Rick is up to something. Neither of them have moved in a couple minutes and there's only ten minutes left. You might wanna watch."

"Noted."

What is he up to? He's clearly thinking, but about what? Effinger knows where he's at. But with the way Rick keeps glancing over his shoulder... looks like he finally got a bead on the Sergeant.

The Corporal sat there for another minute and scratched his chin. Then a devious smile came to his face. He took what looked like an ammo block off his belt and some other small round thing. Is that a...? No.

He started moving along the crates, Effinger none the wiser to his movement. Rick got to a length of the maze around the corner from where Sergeant Effinger was. He peaked around the corned to verify his foe was there and then ducked back into cover, not alerting the other soldier in the maze.

"What is he-" Kaidan muttered.

"Shhhh!" I motioned.

Rick messed with his assault rifle and then took out a spare ammo block. He placed the small black orb on the wall out of sight and pressed a few buttons. What the hell is that? He then placed his rifle on the ground, took a few breaths, and then jammed the spare ammo block where the trigger was, causing it to fire non-stop on full-auto in the Sergeant's direction. Effinger took cover from the fire, none of the shots hitting him, while Rick stealthily ran back to his previous position.

"He's gonna flank him. This might actually work..." I mutter out loud. The rest of the crowd was silent.

"Effinger has to know it's a trap..." Garrus muttered.

"He thinks it's a distraction. He doesn't know that Rick planted something on the crate next to his rigged rifle," I replied.

"I thought I saw him plant something," Kaidan added.

"It looks like a flash-bang..." Garrus muttered.

"It is a flash-bang," I said with a smile. "He stuck it on the crate and probably activated it's motion sensor. As soon as Effinger rounds the corner, he's in for a surprise."

The rifle overheated and stopped firing. Effinger peaked out from cover and grinned as he casually walked up to where the rifle was laying on the ground, not noticing Rick slowly making his way around behind him. Effinger stopped at the rifle, picked it up and said something. As he did, he moved around the corner further only to set off a bright white explosion that caused the crowd to cover their eyes. When I looked back, Effinger was on his knees clutching his helmet-less face and Rick was right behind him, pistol drawn. Rick put two concussive rounds straight into his back, knocking him over. The crowd cheered because the rookie had surprised everyone, and then groaned, realizing they had bet against Rick.

"Holy shit..." Garrus and Kaidan simultaneously muttered.

I said nothing. I just sat there with a huge grin on my face.

_**Rick's POV**_

"So does that mean I win?" I asked with a chuckle while trying to help him to his feet. It was kinda difficult to do that, seeing as how I temporarily blinded and deafened him.

"WHY THE FUCK DID YOU FLASH-BANG ME?" Brent yelled. He must've thought that was his inside voice...

"Well...you never said I couldn't. Only rules were concussive shots and manage to land at least one shot on you." I replied

"I CAN'T SAY I EXACTLY ENJOYED IT, BUT YOU DEFINITELY HAVE POTENTIAL KID, KEEP IT UP. MY DAMN EYES! URGH..."

The barrier above went away, and the platform we were on raised up to the rest of the shuttle bay. As I helped Sergeant Effinger exit the maze, Shepard and the rest of the ground team were near the exit waiting for me.

"I can't believe you actually pulled that off Rook!" Kaidan exclaimed. "I've seen better soldiers than you fail Effinger's test...um, no offense or anything."

"None taken," I replied with a chuckle. "For a while there I didn't think I'd make it, either."

"Effinger, you gonna be ok?" Shepard asked

"Yea, my sight's coming back now. I'll be fine. Keep up the good work kid," he said as he walked away.

"Told ya, you could do it," Shepard said. "At least I know you'll be able to handle yourself decently down on Therum tomorrow."

"Thanks Commander."

"Well, welcome to the team. I mean officially now," she said extending her hand.

"It's an honor," I replied, returning the gesture.

"Well, I'm gonna go collect the credits I'm owed from Joker. He organized the pool," Shepard said with a lopsided grin. "Don't forget to report to Chakwas."

"I won't Commander." And then she walked away.

I walked over to the armor lockers, and started taking my armor off. The rest of the crew sat around and talked amongst each other while I did this. Start with the chest piece, work my way down and finish with the gauntlets and pauldrons. I was about to take off the under armor, but I realized I had no clean clothes. Well... this could be problematic. I'm just gonna leave this on. I doubt anyone will appreciate me streaking through the Normandy. Well I have boxer's on, but still. Hopefully Chakwas won't mind this rather... form-fitting suit.

I started to walk towards the elevator when I overheard Kaidan, Ashley, Garrus and Wrex talking.

"I don't see what's so impressive about it," Wrex muttered.

"Really? He's only been in two firefights and you don't find it impressive that he managed to best a veteran?" Kaidan asked.

"No."

"Like I'm not amazed by this new guy, but I have to admit, based on his experience, or lack thereof, it was impressive," Ashley added.

"I coulda done it at his age."

"Wrex, you're a Krogan..." Garrus said. "Fighting is in your damn blood."

"That wasn't fighting. That was a parlor trick. Real warriors don't deceive their way to victory. That's why I'm not impressed." The Battle-master looked up and made eye contact with me.

I hadn't realized I stopped to listen. The other three looked up to see me standing there as well. Nobody said anything.

Cue cricket noises.

"I'm uh... I'm just gonna go now," I said while awkwardly pointing to the elevator.

"Yea, I have some weapons to fix," Ashley hurriedly said as she rushed over to the weapons bench.

"Migraine. Gotta go take care of this migraine..." Kaidan awkwardly rattled off before leaving.

"Hmmph..." Wrex snorted before stomping away.

"Yea..." Garrus mumbled, the flange in his voice very pronounced. "The Mako needs some calibrations... How about we just pretend this whole thing wasn't awkward. I'll see ya around Rick."

I chuckled. "Yea sounds good Garrus."

* * *

"Well, Mr. O'Connor, it seems like you're in decent shape. You're going to need to exercise a bit, however, to meet Alliance marine standards. Thankfully it shouldn't take too much time," Chakwas informed me.

Normally I wouldn't take advice from a doctor whose name is an anagram for hacksaw, but I'll let it slide this time. I was laying in a bio-bed, still in my under armor, in the Med-Bay while the good doctor sat in a desk near the foot of my bed and reviewed some scans that I had just taken.

"Well, that's a relief Doc," I replied. "No major problems or diseases is always a good thing. And a lack of tumors is always positive." Not entirely sure I trusted Josh's freak experiment to dump me in an entirely different universe in one-piece, so the good test news was a relief.

"Even if you did, tumors aren't that big of a deal to fix anymore. They figured out how to stop their growth, remember?" Chakwas asked.

Wait, wait... cancer is cured? That's amazing! Back in 2012 it was still a _huge_ issue, but it's not 2012 anymore. I probably shouldn't be surprised though. They have a gel that knits skin back together and I'm shocked by a cancer cure. "Erm... right. Just a family history of cancer is all. Still have to worry about it, ya' know?"

"True enough..." she sighed while looking at me and raising an eyebrow raising an eyebrow. "You don't have Bell's Palsy by any chance do you?"

Huh? "Not that I'm aware of Doctor. Why?"

"Your one eye seems a little droopier than the other."

"Ah, that. No Bell's Palsy. Just 'stoner eyes' as my friends dub them. Whenever I'm really tired my eyes tend to get droopy, and I guess the right one is just more pronounced. And I am kind of exhausted after all I went through today. Nothing out of the ordinary."

"Interesting... speaking of your eyes," she said looking back at her datapad, "It appears your vision is also... askew I could say."

"That's putting it nicely," I reply with a chuckle. "20/20 but with some strings attached right? Doesn't need corrective surgery does it? Not exactly fond of pointy objects. Especially when they're poking my eye..." Needles were bad enough as it was. Having to watch one be put into my eye would be the cruelest kind of torture for me. Please say no...

"No," Oh thank _GOD_, "it appears your good eye perfectly makes up for your bad eye. Modified 20/20 indeed."

"Anything else Doc?"

"Well there were some unusual brain wave spikes, but they were infrequent and nothing to be concerned about. Most likely just Eezo spikes from the drive core interfering with the readings. However the most shocking thing is that you have no vaccines for any diseases or any genetic modifications. Why is that?"

Ummmm... let's go with the simplest lie I guess? "Parent's wanted a more naturalistic way to raise me?" I said, making it sound like a half question.

"I see..." she said nodding her head. "Regardless I'm going to have to go against their wishes. Standard safety and Alliance procedure. Hope you're ok with that."

"I don't see why not. But before you do, what exactly am I getting injected with?"

"The first will be just a standard vaccination cocktail almost. It'll protect from most of the harmful contagious diseases spread by various species. The others will be a series of standard Alliance gene mods."

"Which do what?" I asked, genuinely interested to see how far medicine had come. And for my own safety. That too.

"Just some enhancements to make better soldiers. You won't be any super soldier, but we find that these mods don't harm you in any way and it improves survival odds."

"And every Alliance marine has these?"

"Yes. It's standard procedure. Nothing to be afraid of. They consist of a slight muscular hypertrophy-"

"Woah woah, I have a friend with that. Half of his upper body looks like hulk while the rest is... well... not. Are you saying that's gonna happen to my entire body? Like it'd be cool, but I don't really want that."

"No, no. It won't be anywhere near what an uncorrected hereditary case would be. It will just help build muscle slightly faster. Nothing crazy. It'll just help you stay in shape."

"Ok then... and the rest?"

"Well, let's see... to make up for the muscle increase, there's one to fortify your bones, one that increases mental acuity slightly, adrenal responsive bronchodilator to enhance endurance, chemical sterilizer, metabolic booster -"

I bolted upright in my bed. "WAIT! Rewind! What?!"

Chakwas gave me a perplexed look. "Metabolic booster?"

"Before that."

"Chemical sterilizer?"

"Yes, that. You're busting my balls, right Doc?"

"Well in lament's terms, yes, that's exactly what's happening."

Facepalm. "I was joking... You're serious?"

She just nodded.

"Ok," I said uneasily while I scooted back on the bed away from the Doctor, "I am _not_ okay with that! I still use these!" I said while pointing down. "I don't want any little O'Connors running around right now, but shit, I'm all that's left of my family! I want some eventually!"

She just laughed.

"How are you laughing about me getting neutered?!"

She continued to laugh during her explanation. "It's not permanent... easily reversed... oh my, please forgive me... it's just I've never quite seen... a reaction like that before. Most people know it's reversable."

Of course it is. Well this'll be good for ship rumors...

"Well, that's a relief," I said while I felt my cheeks heat up. That one scared me. "Why do you even do that in the first place?"

She finished laughing before she explained. "Simple really. Alliance prohibits fraternization, and marines tend to have... needs. Makes it so they don't make a mistake on shore leave. Granted they still have to worry about diseases, but not having a surprise 9 months down the road certainly takes a lot off their mind."

"That... makes a lot of sense, actually. So it is reversible?"

"Yes, don't worry dear. Once you leave the service of the Alliance it will be reversed."

"Ok. Anything else these gene mods will do?"

"What was the last thing I said before your," she chuckled, "outburst?"

"Metabolic booster..." I replied sounding unamused.

"That was the last one. Ready?"

"Might as well get it over with... Let's do it."

* * *

What time is it? Midnight? Damn, I've been in here a a while. That means there's just under... 12 hours until we get to Therum...

After my session with Chakwas (which hurt like a bitch by the way; tiny pinch really meant getting stabbed with a needle the size of my ringfinger and a few shots meant seven) I went down to my locker and started cleaning my guns, with Ashley's help of course. She taught me how to take apart the weapons. Hopefully with some more practice I'll be a pro like her. Then I moved on to the armor. Wanted to make sure it was in tip top safe for these Geth.

After I was satisfied with my armor, I spoke to the requisitions officer. It was Corey, the same guy who handed me my belongings earlier. Basically all I needed were some clothes. Couldn't exactly walk around all day, every day in my suit's under armor. Thankfully he had about four spares of my size Alliance uniform along with some workout clothes, consisting of a tank top, some basketball shorts, sweatpants, and a light jacket, all with the Alliance logo on 'em of course. I threw the spare clothes in my locker and changed into the workout clothes. I was exhausted and wanted to be comfy. If somebody calls me out on it, I'll use the whole 'new-to-the-Alliance' thing.

I wasn't feeling all too social at the moment so I decided to check out the crew quarters. It was, after all, the only floor I wasn't familiar because it wasn't in the game. I was surprised when the door to the elevator opened from behind me. I looked out to see a kitchen area that a few crew members had been sitting out around. Straight past the kitchen was an area, similar to the hallway with sleeper pods on the second level, were the crew quarters. There were about three rooms on each side of the hallway, and then two more at the very end of the hall. To my right and left were the gym and the showers, respectively. The whole level was pretty awesome. I might actually get to sleep in a real bed and not a pod. After I ate something, I made my way to the gym to get in a good workout, and I've been in there ever since.

I was currently benching some weights. Kaidan and Shepard had also been in there doing there own routines before I even came in there. They'd exchanged words every now and then, but I didn't pay attention to it. I was too focused. Whenever I exercise I tend to zone out and focus only on what I was doing. Therefore, when they walked up to me I barely noticed them. It wasn't until I was done with my set that I realized they were standing next to me.

"Hey guys... Have you uh, been standing there a while?" I asked with a sheepish smile while scratching the back of my neck.

"Not too long. About a minute," Kaidan replied. "You really phase out when you're doing this stuff don't you?"

"You noticed, huh?" I chuckled.

"Yeah," he said, "couldn't help but notice when you didn't respond while we were right in front of you. Like you didn't even hear us."

"I didn't, aha."

He laughed. "Also couldn't help but notice your interesting work out routine."

"Yep," I said with a nod. "My cousin tried to condition me for football. Didn't even join, but it was worth it to get in shape a little bit. He started me on this and I've modified it, but the main principle is the same. Start out with cardio, then move on to some lifting and other exercises. Basically it's low reps, multiple sets, short break in between each. Helps keep the cardio up minus actually doing cardio."

"Not a big cardio guy?"

"Is anyone?" I asked.

"Can't speak for Shepard here, but I know I'm not. Good point. Just keep it up. WIth those gene mods Chakwas gave you, you'll be in great shape in no time."

So much for doctor - patient confidentiality. "You know about that?"

"Yes," Shepard spoke up for the first time. "I do too. I oversee everything that happens on this ship, but I can't do it by myself. Kaidan here overviews everything related to the crew and that happened to be one."

"So... that's all you guys know? Nothing... out of the ordinary?"

"Yep," they both said with a raised eyebrow. "Why?"

"Oh no reason," change the subject, change the subject. "So I'm sure you two didn't just come over to chit chat. Something I can help you two with?"

"Yes actually, we were discussing where you could stay on the ship..." Shepard said. "Thing is, all of the bunks in crew quarters are claimed, and we can't throw you into the sleeper pod schedule without mucking it up."

"Awesome... So I'm sleeping on the floor? Or the Mako?"

"Not exactly..." Kaidan said. "I'm in the sleeper pod schedule so I rarely use the private quarters assigned to me, and I really don't mind the pods. So we were thinking you could take up the XO quarters. Shepard informed me of your... situation, and we both agreed that having a room to yourself would help you conduct business more effectively."

A room to myself? I thought I was going to get a sleeper pod. A whole damn room to myself is gonna be awesome. Feel bad about getting it on false pretenses, but who cares? No annoying roommates!

"So, are you okay with that?" Kaidan asked.

"Yea, I'm perfectly fine with it. Thanks Kaidan. I appreciate it."

"Like I said, it's not a problem."

"Well, glad we got that out of the way," Shepard stated with a yawn. "But... I'm exhausted. I'll see you tomorrow Corporal. Remember: CIC an hour before arrival. Don't be late."

"Aye, aye Commander."

"I should probably go too," Kaidan said. "If I don't get some rest, I'm gonna get a massive migraine. Take it easy Rick."

"Yea, you too." Hmm... I looked at my Omni-tool again to check the time. It was getting pretty damn late. Better hit the hay.

I left the gym and went down to grab my clothes because I now had a room to store them in. One long-ass elevator ride later, and I was in the hangar. As I entered the shuttle bay, I noticed it was pretty much empty. And darker than it was before. Kinda creepy actually. I then heard a deep rumbling noise. Even creepier now. It repeated. Ok, what the hell. Again I heard it.

I looked around to see what was making the noise, and noticed Wrex laying on a cot he had set up near the crates he usually stands by. The noise repeated itself a fourth time. But it wasn't coming from Wrex, who appeared to be asleep.

So the Normandy is haunted. Brand new ship and it's already haunted. Better get used to it. I walked over to the lockers, ignoring the phantom rumbling, and retrieved my clothes. As I walked back to the elevator, I stayed near the Mako as to avoid disturbing Wrex and giving him another reason to dislike me. That's when the rumbling occurred again, only this time, it was much louder. I stopped moving. It sounded a few more times. It almost sounds like... snoring?

I put my ear to the Mako to listen again. It was much louder, and it definitely reminded me of snoring. If I knew how to open this thing I'd totally find out who it was... Wait, where's Garrus?

I looked around seeing no sign of him. Then I put two and two together. No bunks available, sleeper pods full and probably too small for Garrus, he's not laying in the shuttle bay somewhere, so he must be sleeping... in the Mako... snoring like Wrex probably should have been. This is priceless.

I quickly and stealthily jogged to the elevator while stifling my laughter. As soon as the door closed and it started moving, I let it all out. I don't care if anyone saw this later on a security recording. It was worth looking like a fool. If Garrus _ever_ makes fun of me, and he probably will because he's Garrus, I have pretty sizable chunk of ammo just from this. I mean, I'm pretty sure the Mako has _some _sound proofing. He's snoring through that.

Thankfully, I stopped laughing as the elevator stopped at the crew deck. Ok, under control now, find my room.

I walked past the now empty table, through kitchen, and into the hallway where the crew quarters were, and all but two doors were red: the ones at the end of the hallway. I walked over to them. The one on the right said 'Recreational Room' next to it while the other said "XO Quarters." I opened the door. I don't know why I was surprised by it's size, but I was. I was expecting just a standard room with a cot in it, like Liara's future quarters. Not the case.

It was a slightly smaller version of Shepard's room: a decent sized bed in the back, a footlocker to put clothes in at the end of the bed, a desk with an extranet terminal on the right wall, a table to sit and relax with a comfy looking chair, and a private shower in the back, left corner. Yay private shower! Speaking of which that sounds like a great idea, before I pass out...

I smiled as I got ready for a shower. Things were looking up...

* * *

**A/N: Well, I learned a lesson: Never say when you'll have the next chapter out or life will screw you over, aha. Sorry about that. I know I said I'd have it like a week ago, but I got called into work when I wasn't supposed to, had multiple papers and projects dumped on me, basically just Murphy's Law carrying out to its fullest extent. Hope you all enjoyed the chapter. I know it wasn't super actiony, but I promise I'll make up for it. It's Therum after all. Not gonna tell you when the next one is scheduled for release for fear of what will happen if I do. Also the usual stuff, leave criticism in a review, still looking for a beta if anyone is interested, yada yada yada. Have a great week guys.**

**Rfalzar out.**


	7. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: Fun Times on Therum, Part 1**

_Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep..._

Urgh... Can I never wake up to something peaceful? Always this awful beeping noise. Only this time it's accompanied with a bright, flashing, orange light. Wonderful...

I reached my right arm towards a dresser just to find there wasn't one. I struggled to open my eyes just to see that there was no dresser. That's gonna take some getting used to. I then looked down to my left arm to see that it was the source of the noise and flashing light. Definitely gonna be weird getting used to this Omni-tool business. I brought it up to look at the time. We were due to land at Therum around noon and it was... ten to eleven. FUCK.

I jolted out of my bed, threw the sheets in a ball at the end of it, took what may have been the quickest shower of my life, dryed off, hair still semi wet, threw on my new Alliance uniform, which is way more comfortable than it looks, and hauled ass to the elevator to get to the CIC for the meeting. The elevator crept its way up to the next floor. And it was going its typical speed. Of course.

Oh, c'mon... this is not the time to go super slow, elevator!

As if the slow moving, inanimate object was reading my mind, the door opened. Normally I would make some sarcastic mental comment about the turn of events, but I was too busy trying to get there on time. I don't need the hard-ass Commander Shepard, who I just got to like me even if it was only a little bit, pissed at me before this mission even started.

I bounded up the stairs two at a time, weaved my way past a couple crew members (I may be big, but I'm fairly agile), and slid in the door right as the clock hit eleven A.M. Just made it.

"Just in time Corporal," Shepard said. "You make it a habit of being there exactly as things start?"

"What can I say? I'm punctual to the point of perfection," I replied with a sly grin and a shrug of the shoulders.

"Yea..." she started with one eyebrow cocked above the other and an unamused look on her face, "just don't make it a habit of being last minute at every meeting, or you'll be cleaning out the gym locker rooms." I shuddered at that thought. "Take a seat so we can go over our plans."

I took a seat between Tali and Ashley on the left side of the room. Wrex was sitting in the middle on the opposite side and he kinda just stared at me. He really doesn't care for me does he? Whatever. Hopefully I'll prove him wrong on this mission.

Shepard took a seat opposite from us next to Wrex. She then lit up her omni-tool and brought up a projection of Therum in the middle of the room. "Ladies and gentleman, I give you Therum," she said gesturing to the projection of the volcanic planet.

"We performed a preliminary scan of the planet to what we were up against. The planet is a post garden world. Probably used to be nice but now it's all high temperatures and magma. We located the one spot that seemed most likely for Dr. T'Soni to be and that is here," She said as it zoomed in on the familiar dig site. "Our scans also picked up Geth signatures in that area, which just confirms that the Doctor is there. Unfortunately, we can't just drop in on that area. It's not the most stable spot for a Mako to fall. Joker will drop us off here," the map zoomed out and back in on a piece of rock that was our designated drop zone, "and we'll make our way to the dig site." The map zoomed out again and a bright line highlighted the path we would take. "As I said the land by the dig site isn't exactly stable, so we'll have to get in and extract T'Soni as fast as possible. Any questions?"

Silence.

"Good. I'll see you all in the hangar in 50 minutes sharp. Go gear up."

Everyone left the CIC. I was the last one out. Not sure why but I'm always the last one out. Maybe I just subconsciously think its polite to let everyone go first, who knows.

I made my way down the stairs to the elevator.

It's definitely not going to take me 50 minutes to armor up, and my weapons are still in good shape. I _could_ take a nap... but then I pry won't wake up for the mission and royally piss off Shepard. What to do...

I just stepped into the elevator when my stomach started gurgling. Right. Food. That would probably be a good idea before this whole getting shot at business.

I took the elevator to the crew deck and walked over to the kitchen area, only to find that the cook was currently off duty.

Guess I'm making my own food. Something quick and simple perhaps. I opened the cupboard to see various cereals. That'll do. I grabbed a random box (ended up being some kind of Cheerios) some milk out of the fridge, a bowl and some utensils. I found an open seat at the table and started eating.

Halfway through my breakfast, Garrus decided to sit down across from me, with a plate of weird bluish purple food. We sat in silence for a few moments before I decided to say something.

"Didn't know they had dextro food on the ship," I said between a bite of my breakfast.

"They don't..." he replied. "I had to bring my own supply with me. Thankfully I just stocked up in my apartment."

"Well at least you have food. That you can eat without it killing you that is."

He chuckled. "True enough. On a dangerous mission chasing a highly trained rogue spectre and his army of synthetic servants, and I die from eating the wrong type of food because there isn't any dextro supplies here... I don't think my ancestors or the Spirits would let me live it down."

I couldn't help but laugh at that. "The Vakarian that was stricken from the records..."

He chuckled again as well. "Never was the best Turian. I'd make history by being the first disowned person in my family only to have everyone forget it..."

A silence came over us as we continued eating our food.

"So... you ready for this mission?" he asked.

"As ready as I can be... I mean yea, I'm nervous about the whole thing, but at the same time I'm excited. Don't wanna die, but I kinda wanna see some action."

"Just don't be too eager. The ones who think they're ready for it are always the first ones to get killed or injured."

"Oh, believe me, I'm not stupid. Just have my nerves acting up a little. And they're conflicting with each other..."

"Just remember you're training and do what you did at Chora's. You should be fine."

"Thanks for the advice," I said while finishing off my meal. "But speaking of the mission, I should pry go get ready for it."

"I'll talk to ya when you get back. Good luck."

I nodded and walked towards the sink to put my dishes away.

* * *

I finished strapping my armor and weapons on with about 10 minutes to spare before dropping in the Mako. It's honestly kind of surprising how long it takes to get it all together. Not that I was expecting it to be like some kind of Dead Space suit kiosk type deal (it'd be awesome if it was), but I thought it might take less time. While I was suiting up most of the ground team had gathered around the Mako with the exception of the Commander. At least I wasn't last this time.

I walked away from my locker and made my way over to the rest of the crew and greeted them. Again all I got from Wrex was a simple grunt. Looks like I'm gonna have to impress him on this mission if I ever want to get anything other than a cave-man answer from him.

"Nice armor corporal," Ashley said. "If I didn't know you were Irish before with the last name of O'Connor, I certainly do now."

That's right. She really didn't get to see it much on the Citadel. I put on my best Irish accent, which I've been told is pretty damn good.

"Yea, well I thought it'd be good to 'ave the luck o' the Irish on me side foer any scuffles we 'ad. Then I remembered we didn't really 'ave the best of luck."

She laughed. "Well whatever you think helps."

"Hope you know what you're doing sacrificing the helmet," Shepard said walking up behind me. I didn't even hear the elevator open. "I'd hate to lose a man on the first mission."

"I appreciate your concern Shepard, but after that firefight with Sergeant Effinger, my head doesn't stay out of cover very long. My headache just went away from that concussive shot to the skull."

"Good to hear Corporal. Everybody pile in the Mako. Joker's dropping us off in a few minutes."

I got in the Mako, not really knowing what to expect. The inside was roomy but not super spacious if Wrex's expression was any indication of how comfortable he was.

"You got enough room in here Wrex?" I asked him.

"I've been through worse," was his simple reply. Ok then...

I looked towards the front of the vehicle and noticed two seats. One had a steering wheel, so I'm assuming that's the drivers seat, and the other had a bunch of monitors surrounding it. Navigations? Sure we'll go with that.

Just posterior to the two front seats was something like a chair hanging from the ceiling. A faint glowing emanated from the enclosed area above the seat, and a shadow of a singular, blocky handle projected itself against the back of the seat

Shepard finally hopped in the Mako and took the driver controls. "Williams, take navigation and keep an eye out for hostiles when we land."

"Will do, Commander."

"Wrex, I'm sure you've operated things like this before, take the turret controls," Shepard ordered.

"Shepard... This is an Alliance vehicle. As much as I'd enjoy blowing things to hell on the turret, there's no chance in hell that Im fitting up there."

She sighed. "Corporal, it's up to you then. Aiming is fairly straight forward. all you need to know is that left trigger fires the main cannon while right fires the heavy MG. Think you can handle it?"

"Sure thing commander."

"Get up there and strap in. We're almost at our LZ."

Oh boy... Turret controls. C'mon years of video gaming don't fail me now! I climbed up into the seat and took in my surroundings. It was essentially a tiny enclosed compartment with a holo screen in front of it. The holo screen had a reticle in the middle, what I'm assuming are overheat meters on the top left and right corners for the guns, and a projected an image of the shuttle bay. Well, aiming is pretty straight forward. I then looked at the controls; it was essentially just two handles with triggers on each of them connected by a bar. Also pretty straight forward. This might be easier than I was thinking.

The next thing I know, I watched the shuttle bay doors open. Here we go...

Joker's voice came over the PA, "Ok, guys, we're at optimal drop distance. You might wanna grab something in about 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... Now!"

Shepard slammed on the gas throwing us out of the hangar, and I got a front row view of it all.

I had conflicted feelings on dropping out of a ship and plummeting to the ground who knows how far away. On one hand, I'm not a huge fan of heights. I'm not exactly afraid of heights, it's just that falling to my death has never been my idea of a particularly good time.

On the other hand, I've always liked roller coasters, and this was pretty damn similar. Adrenaline rush, feeling of my stomach sinking, and that unmistakable sensation of fear combined with excitement. Let's have some fun with this then.

I threw my hands up in the air, or towards the top of my little compartment and couldn't help but yelling "WOOOOOOOO!" as we hurtled towards the planet's surface. It was a good thing I strapped into the gunner's seat earlier, otherwise I probably would have been floating around the Mako somewhere. Even with being strapped in I kinda hovered in my seat.

The next thing I know, the Mako lurches upward, and I crash into the seat causing my head to lurch forward. Unfortunately, because I didn't grab onto anything, I had apparently slipped forward just enough for the straps to be ineffective at keeping my completely held back. My nose collided with the turret controls. Hard. My vision instantly clouded with tears from the impact, and I felt something warm and wet start to seep from my nose.

"Everyone alright" Shepard asked.

"Hmmph," said Wrex.

"Alright here," came from Ashley.

"I'm fine," muttered Tali.

"Urgh, my damn nose!" I replied while tilting my had back and holding it to try and stop the bleeding."

"Corporal?" she asked.

"I think I broke my nose..." I said with a pained voice.

Shepard sighed. Again. "Change of plans. Rick, get down here and take a seat with Wrex. Ashley, you're gunning now. Tali, think you can figure out the nav controls?"

"Please Commander, I'm a Quarian."

She laughed. "That's what I like to hear. Lemme know when you two get situated. And Williams?"

"Yes, Commander?" she asked, halting her climb into the gunner's seat.

Shepard turned around and gave an evil smile. "Help the Corporal out will you?"

Ash just laughed, walked over to where I was sitting, and grabbed a small medkit from above me. I was still awkwardly trying to stop the flow of blood.

"How the hell did you let that happen?" she asked while rifling through the kit.

"Well, I thought that seeing as how I was wearing a seatbelt I'd be fine, but I guess those are just for show."

"You lifted your hands up didn't you?"

"Yea?... How'd you know?"

Ashley laughed and put her hands on my face, feeling my nose with her thumbs. "Cause the first time I went on a practice run in a Mako, I did the same thing. Only I lost consciousness and had a concussion for a few days after."

I couldn't help but laugh. The typically semi-serious Ash, making as big of a fool of herself as I just did. "Learn your lesson?"

I felt a slight pressure followed by a sharp cracking pain as the Chief snapped my nose back into place. "Did you?" she asked with a smirk.

I'm not typically the kind of person to make noises or scream when I'm injured because I generally have a pretty high pain tolerance, but that almost made me do it. Forgot how sensitive the nose was.

"Ow... I think so..." I muttered.

"Good. I'm gonna apply some Medi-Gel, and then you should be good by the time we get to the Doctor. For now just try not hurt yourself again."

"I'll try, but I promise nothing," I said with a grin as I leaned back. She put a light layer of the clear substance on my nose. The pain in my face was already starting to go away, and the bleeding has all but stopped. Medi-Gel is awesome!

She must've ignored me cause she just climbed up into the gunner's

Both Ash and Tali gave the all set and Shepard took off right after. I was kind of expecting this ride to be terrible given the Mako control in the game, but it actually wasn't. Guess that's one thing BioWare got wrong... unfortunately. Or maybe it was just me who hated the Mako controls. Then again I may have been a bit biased considering I didn't know it had a cannon until the Conduit run on my second playthrough. I was sitting there like a jackass shooting everything with just the machine gun for nearly two playthroughs... I wouldn't have even known there was a cannon if I hadn't dropped my controller on the bumper and made it fire. Whatever, I'm letting my mind wander.

As I focused back in on reality, I saw Wrex sitting across from me with arms crossed and he was well... glaring would be the nice way to put it. Or maybe it was just his face, I don't know. Let's tempt fate a little.

"Can I help you?"

"Just wondering if all humans are as easily broken as you."

"Again. I'm not a massive walking tank like you."

"And I'm just saying. I've seen toddler Salarians take bigger hits than the one you just did to yourself and walk away without a scratch."

"Whatever Wrex..."

He just laughed his deep evil laugh and left it at that.

The ride went on for another five minutes in silence until Tali interrupted it.

"We're approaching two large Geth signatures Commander."

"Hold on tight people. This might get rough."

"Shepard, signatures are reading as two Geth Armatures up ahead," Tali warned.

"You mean those four-legged things?" Shepard asked as they came into view.

"Yes. Equipped with an anti-infantry mini-gun and a plasma cannon to take out vehicles."

"Wonderful..." the Commander muttered. "Ashley! You know what to do!"

"Already lining up the shots Commander..."

"The rest of you... well just hold onto your asses."

And with that, the previously peaceful ride turned into the one I was more familiar with. The Mako started frantically bouncing, my head was being whipped back and forth, nausea and a headache set in. Not too different from the feeling I got whilst operating the Mako in game, simply because the controls were so infuriating (not to mention gravity defying; "Go up that cliff at a ninety degree angle you say? Not a problem!")

All during the evasive maneuvers I heard the thundering roar of the main cannon, followed by the repeating patter of the heavy MG. About a minute or two later, the firing halted and the driving went back to being tolerable.

"Nice job Williams," Shepard complimented as she continued driving towards the dig site.

"I like big guns," was Ashley's reply.

That got a chuckle out of most of the crew. Well, except for me. I was busy trying to keep my meal down. Eat some breakfast I said! It'll pry be a good idea to eat before the mission I said! I wasn't gonna complain though. It could be worse than nausea... I could be a charred corpse from the Mako blowing up.

We kept driving but we didn't see any more Geth. This was odd. There was supposed to be an assload of armatures around here, but whatever, the less I'm getting shot at the better. We were getting closer to the compound where we'd have to get out and open the gate when we came across a massive rock formation that acted as a bridge over the lava. Then, out of nowhere, a Geth dropship flew in, delivering Geth for us to slaughter. The report of the cannon and MG sounded soon after its appearance, but none of the shots seemed to affect it. It also wasn't shooting at us, which I found strange. Until I noticed it was shooting at the bridge. Shit.

"Shepard you need to hit the brakes!" No sooner had I said that, the rock bridge exploded, leaving a massive gap over the lava that in no way were we gonna be able to jump. And we're not fully braked. I closed my eyes and braced for the worse. Fuck, fuck, shit, lava is gonna hurt...

And then we stopped moving. Am I dead? I looked out of the front viewport to see that Shepard had barely prevented the Mako from falling over the edge; the nose was pointed downwards slightly, and I'm pretty sure the front two wheels were dangling in the air. Good thing we have four wheels still on the ground. The other thing I noticed was that... we were glowing blue?

"Thanks for the brake assist Wrex," Shepard said sounding relieved.

"I didn't feel like melting today," was Wrex's reply.

"Regardless. Thanks. Now how are we getting over this..." She sat there for a few seconds. When I looked over about to suggest something, I saw her eyes light up and an evil smirk form on her face. Suddenly she threw the Mako in reverse, ending my sentence before it began, and started going as far back as she could. She stopped the tank and put it back into drive.

Shepard took a deep breath and then asked, "You guys ready?"

"Ready for wha-" was all I managed to get out before Shepard floored it, the sudden jolt cutting me off. Did I mention she was flooring it towards the huge gap over the lava? I didn't? Well she was.

"Um Shepard?" I asked, sounding as nervous as I felt.

"Trust me..." was all that she said.

We were rapidly picking up speed as we approached the gap.

"Skipper? I heard Ashley ask from the gunner's seat.

"Just _trust_ me..." Shepard said.

Oh, God...We're gonna die... I closed one eye. We were about 30 feet from the lava pit when Shepard punched a button on the console and slammed on a pedal under her left foot, the button giving a speed boost, and the pedal causing the Mako to jump. We were halfway over the lava when everything seemed to slow down. It felt like we were suspended in the air, barely moving. The only thought that went through my mind was the deep voiced narrator from the Dukes of Hazzard saying "Well...Looks like Shepard and the gang are at it again..."

Then everything sped back up and we were rocketing towards the other side. We landed with a crunch, a splash of white coating the front viewport.

"Looks like we landed on some Geth," Shepard said nonchalantly while activating the wipers.

"Some Geth? Shepard we just crushed one of those massive four-legged ones!" Ashley exclaimed.

"Same thing," she muttered.

"Commander, can we never do that again?" I heard Tali ask.

"Agreed," I stated, letting out a breath I didn't realize I was holding.

"What're you sniveling Pyjaks talking about?" asked Wrex "I wanna do it again!" He said with a deep laugh.

"Glad I'm not the only one who enjoyed it," Shepard said with a chuckle. "Come on, we have a doctor to rescue."

* * *

"Shepard, Garrus is gonna be pissed when we get back. From what I've seen he's been spending a lot of time with the Mako, and you just messed it up." I said as we neared our objective.

We had passed through the barricades the Geth had put up. Mostly because Shepard ran over everything that moved. We got through the small compound they had fortified by crushing every platform that was there. The turret rarely fired. "How many Geth pieces do you think are stuck underneath us?"

"Enough to keep him busy for a while..." She replied. That got a laugh out of everyone.

We kept driving for another minute or two when Shepard suddenly stopped. "Looks like we're going on foot from here. Our destination isn't too far from our current location and there's no way we're making it through this in the Mako." She must be referring to that massive rock wall with the super narrow path leading up that hill. This'll be fun.

As we piled out of the Mako, Shepard reached toward her helmet, "Joker! Come pick up the Mako, we're going on foot for the rest of the mission."

"Sure, cause you know I run a pick-up service. I'm not the pilot of _the_ _most_ advanced frigate in the Alliance Navy or anything," replied the pilot, voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Keep that in mind Flight Lieutenant. Might be a good alternative career choice for you if you keep up the mouth," she said.

"... Right. Picking up the Mako in ten..."

"Note to self, don't be sarcastic to the Commander," I muttered.

"Heard that," she said. "Not that I don't appreciate sarcasm, I just don't appreciate it all too much in the middle of a mission. Come on, we're wasting time here."

Shepard grabbed her sniper from her back, while the rest of the crew grabbed their weapons of choice; I grabbed the valiant, Wrex had his shotgun, Tali was holding her pistol, and Ashley's unfolded her assault rifle. Shepard then looked down her scope. "Ok...There's a small clearing up ahead overlooked by...one, two, three towers. Each one has what appears to be a sniper. Tali take a look." she said, handing the Quarian her sniper rifle.

"Yea, two snipers on the outer tower and a rocket trooper on the middle." She handed the rifle back.

"Here's the plan: Wrex, Tali, Ash, you guys go eliminate the targets that are sure to be on the ground. Looks like it leads to a small valley. Be careful for any ambushes. You'll also get the sniper's attention, so make sure you find some cover. The Corporal and I will stay back and cover you. Understood?"

"Aye, Aye," everyone replied.

"Ok, move out."

Shepard and I stood at the entrance taking cover on the rocks. We watched as the other three disappeared down the hill.

"Wait until you here them fire... I'll take the rocket trooper. You take the far left sniper" she said.

Shortly after, shots echoed out. I took aim, the visor quickly indicating my target. I lined up the sights over the flashlight, and my victims head exploded in a mess of electrical bursts and white fluid. I moved my scope over to the right just in time to hear a mantis fire and see Shepard's shot land. A thunderous sound erupted from the rocket trooper. Fire bloomed outward and weakened the tower's structure. It collapsed into the remaining tower, helplessly crushing the final sniper.

"Holy shit, commander..."

"I was gonna take it's head off, but then I thought shooting the rocket would cause more damage. I was right," she said with a smirk.

We ran down the slope and met up with the rest of the team, noticing that Wrex had a knack for dismemberment and making as big of a mess as possible. There were Geth bits everywhere and his massive shotgun was still smoking. Tali was covered on one half of her torso with Geth blood. She didn't look all too thrilled.

"Next time we go to kill Geth, don't send me with Wrex. Geth blood is hard to wash off..." Tali mumbled.

"Not my fault you let two of em sneak up on you. It was either let you die or splatter Geth..." was Wrex's gruff reply. "Next time I'll just leave em be." He seemed unphased.

"By the way Shepard, nice explosion."

"Easier than picking em off one by one at least.." she replied.

We kept the same plan for the next part, only this time Ashley stayed back to snipe while I was with Tali and Wrex. I moved up behind some rocks and a large cliff waiting to give the signal to the snipers. I looked over to Wrex, waiting for him to indicate that both him and Tali were ready to charge up into the next clearing. I was waiting for Wrex to point ahead to indicate the fire signal, but I guess that's not how he works. He kinda just started walking forward firing his shotgun, taking out some Geth's shields for us.

I popped out of cover, vindicator set to single shot for accurate fire, and started unloading. My first shot hit an unshielded Geth right in the flashlight, and it immediately dropped to the ground. Thank you Wrex. I quickly changed targets. I fired five rounds into his shields to take them out. Three more shots followed and the machine collapsed.

We continued weathering the forces shields down. Every so often, a sniper shot would sound from behind me, and a Geth I had just unshielded would drop. I was never a huge fan of kill-stealing in games, but I think I'll make an exception when actual bullets are whizzing by me.

We had just about finished clearing the small battleground when I noticed a red flash out of the corner of my eye. I looked up to a cliff to see a Geth sniper prone and aiming. Right at me. Wonderful.

I immediately snapped my rifle up to his location and started firing. My shots weren't as accurate as I had hoped, but a few landed. I kept firing, hoping somebody would help, but they were pre-occupied with the few remaining ground forces. The sniper fired once or twice times but my glancing shots knocked its aim off. A warning popped up on my visor, indicating my gun was about to overheat, but it came a second too late. The vindicator had already started venting.

I was pinned against a rock and a hard place. Literally. I was between a rock I had been using for cover and the cliff the sniper was using as a perch. There was nowhere I could roll to dodge it. I was pinned against my cover. Every time I tried to get out of the predicament, the red dot would appear in front of me, cutting off my escape route. It was kind of like that thing kids do with bugs: bug tries to run away somewhere and the kid blocks with his hand and keeps blocking off every path the bug tries to take afterwards.

I don't like being a bug. Maybe I can show him that this bug has teeth,

I dropped my rifle, reaching for my valiant, hoping it would unfold in time to actually deal damage. I tried running out of my death pit, and dropped into a slide on my knees. The scope snapped up to my eye. I frantically tried to line up the reticles as the Geth adjusted his position. I don't have this shot lined up. I'm screwed.

A loud crack sounded in the background. I watched as a bullet entered one side of the sniper's head and exited the other. I slid down my cover into a sit, breathing in as I relaxed. I heard footsteps approaching behind me to see the two snipers nearing. Shepard continued forward, Ash came over to me with a smirk plastered on her face with an extended hand to help me up. "Saw you struggling with that sniper. Thought I'd lend a hand."

"Better late than never..." I said taking her hand and getting to my feet. "Looks like I owe you one Chief."

"Yea, you do. Pick up your rifle. We gotta catch up to the others."

We jogged down a slope and caught up with everyone else. They had regrouped at the base of an upward slope and were all checking their weapons.

"Anyone injured?" Shepard asked.

"Negative Commander," Ashley replied.

"Nothing I won't get over," Wrex said.

Tali and I simply shook our heads. I had a couple bruises from taking cover a little too fast, but nothing that wouldn't heal.

"Ok then. The dig site is right up ahead. Let's get a move on," she said spinning around and walking up the hill.

Fuck...this part. There's a lot of Geth up here aren't there? Yea, it was the part with the Armature we have to take out on foot. Wonderful.

No guts not glory I guess...

* * *

**A/N: Hey guys, sorry for the long update period. I had planned on uploading this a while ago, but I just got a new work schedule. Now if I'm not in class I'm working. Doesn't leave a whole lot of time for writing, but I'm trying my best. I'll hopefully have the second part of the Therum mission up shortly. Also sorry if it seems like I cut the chapter off just as it was picking up, but the entire Therum arc is fairly long and I'd rather make more chapters with shorter length than a few massive chapters.**

**Also, I'd like to thank everyone for the support. I appreciate every review I get, and it's definitely awesoeme when I see my story views spike. I know we haven't gotten very far into this, but for those who have been following this, I really appreciate it.**

**As always, leave a review if you would like to. Your criticism and ideas just serve to make this story better so feel free to send em my way.**

**Rfalzar out.**

**P.S. - So for some reason, despite posting it last night and the fact that it's only supposed to take 30 minutes to post a new chapter, it hadn't gone up when I just checked, around 8 AM PST. Something about the chapter not being found. I think I may have broke ... Hopefully this will finally work? Sorry for any confusion, but yes I did indeed post a new chapter, aha.**


	8. Chapter 7

**A/N: So I was watching Blue Bloods the other day, and saw Danny's new partner. Her character is kinda what I was envisioning for Shepard in this story. Strong facial features, short hair, fairly attractive, yet dangerous. For those interested in looking it up, the actress is Megan Boone. Just thought I'd let you all know what my Shep looks like in this. **

**Anyhow... Enough talking! Here's the chapter!**

* * *

**Fun Times on Therum Pt. 2**

I walked up to the top of the hill with Shepard, Wrex, Tali, and Ashley to see the mining facility I was used to: a couple pillars, a few massive crates, the ramp up to the facility entrance and... a bunch of small and large metallic boulders? That's new.

The smaller boulders unfolded into the lanky, creepy Geth I always hated fighting.

"Hoppers..." Tali muttered.

I thought the drop ship was supposed to fly over and put them here? They weren't just waiting for you. Wait... if those were hoppers... Ash interrupted my thoughts.

"I'm more concerned about those things..." she said pointing to three giant things that slowly started to unfold. "Everyone take some cover! This is gonna get rough!" Shepard yelled.

Don't need to tell me twice. We hauled ass over to the crates and pillars, Ashley, Shepard, and I taking cover on the left with Tali and Wrex taking cover on the massive crate parallel to ours. I looked around the corner...

You've got to be fucking kidding me... Not one, but two armatures. And right behind it was a colossus. No wonder there weren't that many on the approach. Why is there so many right here? This isn't supposed to be happening. Is it because I'm here?Whatever, not the time to think about it, just kill them. The three massive Geth's eyes started glowing as they charged their plasma cannons. I took that as a cue to stop looking at them.

"Tali! What are these things and how do we kill them?" Shepard yelled into her comm while shooting a hopper that got too close.

The quarian's voice was hard to discern over the constant machine gun fire and plasma bolts whizzing by us, not to mention the return fire everyone was giving, but it was just audible enough, "The armatures are easier to deal with, I found a weak spot while studying them! If we hit them with a sabotage, a tiny node will pop out underneath it's head. It's their cooling systems! Take that out and it'll overheat and malfunction!" Well that wasn't in the game. But then again neither was an extra armature and a fucking colossus. "The colossus on the other hand we'll have to deal with the old fashioned way."

"Understood," Shepard replied while taking a break from shooting and snapping back into cover. "Tali, you sabotage the right one, I'll take care of the left. Ash and Rick, you guys shoot the nodes that come out. Wrex and I will provide cover fire on those Geth that are jumping around. Understood?" Everyone replied with a positive. "Ok, then. On my mark." I put my vindicator back on its magnetic holster and pulled out my valiant. Everyone was waiting on Shepard. There was a sudden lull in gunfire and she uttered one word: "Mark."

Everybody sprung into action, Shepard and Tali leaned out with their omni-tools glowing and released a spark of energy, causing the armatures to pause. That was my cue. I took aim at the one farthest from me, looking for something to pop out of it's head.

The Geth looked down, and a small red cube jutted out under its head, venting the heat. That must be it. I quickly took aim at it, lined it up in the crosshairs, and fired. The tiny metal shard pierced the fragile spot on the armature. We snapped back into cover as both armatures resumed firing.

We all stood there for what seemed like forever under the withering fire of the three massive Geth. Really hoping our cover holds out...

"Tali! It's not working!" Shepard yelled rather anxiously.

"Just a few more seconds Commander!" she replied

The fire stopped, and I peeked around the corner, hoping the colossus wasn't firing at me to see what was happening. Both armatures' heads started to twitch and soon after there was a small explosion, separating head from the neck. The next thing we know both armatures collapsed to the ground

"OORAH!" Ashley yelled with a smirk on her face.

"Don't celebrate yet Chief! We still have that thing to deal with!" Shepard said with a lean of her head in the colossus' direction.

We all leaned around our cover and unloaded on the massive Geth. I had switched my rifle to full-auto in order to do as much damage as fast as I could, but it didn't make much difference. I looked around and the rest of the team was sending as many rounds as they could downrange, but it all seemed futile as its shields were still active. It started to glow, indicating an incoming plasma cannon blast.

We all took cover once again, switching weapons in order to fend off hoppers who landed in front of us.

"Shepard..." Wrex started as he tore a hopper in half with his shotgun, "We're running out of cover..."

"Just waiting for a good time to start weakening it Wrex..." Shepard replied. A plasma blast soared by us. "Like now! Tali, Overload!"

I rounded the corner on the crate, seeing an explosion of sparks from the dual overload. I sprayed it with fire from my rifle just to see them deflect off of its shields. Again, I noticed the colossus' head start to glow. "Shit..." I muttered to myself as a massive plasma blast came barreling towards us. We all managed to get in cover in time.

Ok. Should be safe to fire again. I crouched on one knee, coming out of cover with my rifle ready, just to see another plasma missile heading towards me. Fuck. I felt a rough tug on my shoulder, and was pulled back into cover just in time. I sat there for a few a seconds until Shepard interrupted my thoughts. "Oh don't worry about it rookie, your welcome. Anytime," she said.

"Yea... Thanks commander..." I replied weakly. She just nodded. "I thought you didn't like sarcasm on missions?"

"I'm the CO. I don't count," she mentioned jokingly. "We have to take this thing out. Wrex! Can you do anything to help with your biotics?!" She yelled over all the fire.

"Not without a distraction!" he yelled back.

"I'll take care of that..." Shepard begrudgingly stated.

"Then lemme see what I can do..." the massive Krogan grumbled.

"Understood."

Shepard ran out of cover, tossed a grenade with each hand, and then pulled out her pistol and rifle and started firing at the mechanical monster as she weaved in and out of bullets. Ballsy. And badass. No wonder Shepard's the best.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see a bright blue glow. I turned to see both Wrex and the colossus wreathed in wisps of blue. The colossus' left front leg started moving outward without its consent, pulling it over as it started losing its balance. I heard Wrex grunt and the massive Geth's leg started bending in the opposite direction of what it was intended for. There was a loud creaking and sparks shot from the joints of the arm as it was helplessly broken.

Damn. I knew Wrex was a battlemaster but I had no idea how powerful his biotics actually were. I'm going with really damn powerful considering he just almost ripped a colossus' leg off. Why couldn't we do that in the game?

Wrex then charged a large orb in hand and threw it at the front leg he didn't break. The colossus fell to the ground with a huge boom, shaking the earth around us and causing us to lose our balance. The minor quake also caused 2 of the final 4 hoppers to lose their footing and fall to the ground. I took aim and let loose a volley of bullets which tore though its shields and armor, leaving a pile of broken machine parts and white ooze.

The colossus tried to reorient itself for an attack, by which I mean it sorta turned it's head to try and shoot at us, but it was taking a while. This gave us time to whittle its shields away. I started to hear a rattling noise above me, but I ignored it as I let my gun cool down and took cover.

More rattling. I looked up to see a giant red cylinder that fell off a pillar above us plummeting toward the ground, landing in front of me with a crash. This, in turn knocked me on my ass.

That can't be good. I don't know what's in it, but rule of thumb that I always go by is if it's in a situation where guns are being fired and it's red... it probably explodes. I started to instinctively back away from it.

Shepard saw it, and yelled over the comm while we put a little distance between ourselves and the container.

"We need to get the hell out of here or we're all-" She was interrupted. Apparently the downed colossus finally reoriented and realized what the red container was as well. A single shot from its MG pierced the tank, causing a massive explosion. We managed to get far enough away in the time that we had for the flames to not engulf and kill us, but the resulting shockwave sent dirt, rocks, pieces of crate, Geth bodies, and our team flying.

I was moving towards the building when it went off, sending me rocketing into the edge where I collided with the wall on my left side, knocking the air out of my lungs. After I made contact with the wall I tumbled to the ground and landed on my back.

That was fun... Let's never do it again.

My vision was swimming back and forth, and there was a pain in my...well everything, but most noticeably there was a sharp pain in my arm. Looks like everyone is ok? I can barely make it out, but they're squirming on the ground and dazed like me only they got blown a little bit down the hill. Thankfully the Geth colossus can't get a bead on us.

I then felt something pounce on my chest, knocking the air out my lungs again, followed by pressure on my arms, wrenching the already injured one. My head snapped forward, the sudden adrenaline rush clearing my vision...

And that basically catches up to where we are now, hopper on my chest, about to fire a tiny metal shard straight into my brain. Well, I think I may have won a medal. Shortest time served in the Alliance before killed off. At least I set a record before I got offed. Nothing left to do, but close my eyes, and accept the cards that fate dealt me...

BANG!

...

Is this death? Cause I really feel no different. I open one eye apprehensively and look up. The Geth is still on top of me, but its head is cocked to the side like a confused dog.

So I'm not dead. It was then that I noticed everything seemed to be tinted slightly black, as if I was looking through sunglasses. I look at my body to see that I'm covered in black wisp like things reminiscent of a biotic aura. What the fuck is going on? I see movement out of the corner of my eye as a large glowing piece of metal is lifted into the air and hurled out of view. I'm assuming Wrex just impaled the colossus with it.

"RICK!" I hear Shepard yell as she brought up her gun to aim at the hopper. It was too late. The Geth was preparing to fire again. This time the shot goes off a lot sooner, but as it did, it hit me and bounced off straight into its flashlight. The machine slumped forward on top of me as it died.

Not that I'm complaining that I'm still alive or anything...

BUT WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!

I shove the Geth body off of me and sit up to see the team brushing off their armor and then walking over to me. Shepard arrived first.

"That was a close call Corporal... Why didn't you tell us you were a biotic?"

I took me a minute to realize what she was saying. Trying to recover from a near death experience isn't the most pleasant sensation in the world. "Biotic? Me? Shepard I have no special abilities. I'm just a foot-soldier. Point at something to shoot and I'll shoot it. I'm no biotic," I say with a shaky voice.

"Listen kid..." Wrex pipes in, "I've been alive longer than all of you put together. I know biotics when I see them, and that was definitely a biotic barrier. Only odd thing is that yours wasn't blue. It was black. And felt weird."

"What do you mean felt weird?" Shepard inquires.

"You see, whenever somebody uses biotics, it emits a kind of pulse," Wrex starts to explain, "That's what causes the little distortions that you see. Most people who aren't biotics themselves can't feel it, but people who use them all the time get used to recognizing them. They're mostly all the same, just varying a little bit based on the user, but always similar. His however... I've never felt something like it before. _Never_, and I've been around a while. It's odd...to say the least." On that last sentence he focused on me and his eyes narrowed as if he was suspicious.

Great. Now I have a centuries old Krogan battle-master wary of me. Earn the hatred of the Mass Effect universe? Check. There's no way I can have biotics. You have to be born with the ability, and it's highly uncommon among humans. Must've been something like the forcefield that Liara is gonna be trapped in. I'm gonna need a med-scan after this anyhow so that'll prove it.

"Listen Wrex, I don't doubt you know your biotics, but I'm not one. I was exposed to no eezo in the womb, and I've never heard of somebody living for 20 years and not knowing they were one, or having the ability manifest itself over night. Hell, even if I was I don't have an amp, so how did I make a barrier powerful enough to stop one bullet and to deflect another? I'm just gonna call me still being alive a freak miracle, be thankful, and then forget it ever happened."

"Hrmph..." is his reply, suspicious gaze still trained on me.

"This is odd..." Shepard mutters while I stood up, "You'll need to visit the MedBay after that tumble you took, so we'll have Chakwas sort it out after this mission is through. Now's not the time to discuss this. Come on guys, we have to go save this scientist before the Geth get to her." She slaps me on the left shoulder as she walks away.

"Ow..." I mumble. I nearly forgot about my arm. Feels like it's out of socket. That's not unusual. Just...POP it back in. I slowly follow them past the Geth wreckage and up the ramp, rotating my arm to make sure nothing was wrong with it.

"Have you... always been able to do that?" I hear Ashley say from behind me with a slightly disgusted sound in her voice. She must have seen me do that.

"Yea," I say while laughing, "most people have that reaction. I'm used to it. I'm kinda double jointed. You won't see me do any creepy contortionist stuff but yea..."

"Great, a freaky jointed, weird, biotic kid who defies death is on the squad. You're a... unique one O'Connor." Ash says as we walk through the door to the compund.

"Quiet you two," Shepard whispers in a harsh tone. "I think I heard something ahead of us..."

We all ready our weapons and advance down the long corridor that seemed to go on forever. We made it on the catwalk and stand in a wedge formation, with Shepard on point and two lines behind her: me and Ash on the left, Wrex and Tali on the right. We move as stealthily as possible, which is hard to do with a massive Krogan walking next to you. We round a corner and down some stairs when Shepard stops and holds up a fist. I don't know much about hand signals, but I know that one means stop.

She looks directly at me because I was the closest, holding up two fingers and pointing at two Geth a fair distance away. Ok, that's straight forward.

She then points to me and uses her thumb to point left, and then to herself and pointed to the right. She followed that by taking aim in their direction. I guess that was code for you take the left one? I hope so. I brace my sniper against my shoulder, hold my breath, and wait for Shepard to fire. A few seconds later I hear the crack of her rifle, and follow suit.

"Targets neutralized..." I mutter while switching to my vindicator. I have always wanted to say that.

A sigh came from Shepard. "Just keep moving..." she says.

We continue along the catwalks, making quick work of any stray Geth unfortunate to cross our path. Thankfully that's not many. We round a corner and stumble upon an elevator. Everyone climbs in as Shepard hits the down button.

We come to another catwalk. I advanced forward, walking in sync with the rest of the group. I know there's more Geth than this... Isn't this where...?

Right on cue, five Geth drones fly up to ambush us. I pick a target and start firing. I ignore the rounds pinging against my shields, hoping that we could finish them off before they were fully depleted. Even despite the fact that there was no cover, they go down relatively fast when they're up against the five of us.

We walk up to another elevator and get in. The ride down was taking much longer than I remembered from the game, and nobody was talking. Awkward silence. "You know what'd make this ride better?" I ask. "Elevator music."

Not even 5 seconds later, the elevator started sparking, screeching, and stopped about 7 feet above the platform it was supposed to go to.

"Looks like even the elevator disagrees with you," Shepard says with a smirk. "Come on, it's not too far a jump." I jump down after Tali and Shepard, trying to land and make as little noise as possible. I move forward on the walkway and almost fall over the railing as Wrex plummeted from the elevator with a crash.

"Damn Wrex!" I say. "I thought we were trying to be sneaky!"

"What do you want me to do a bout it?" He retorts. "I'm a Krogan. If you didn't notice, we're kind of large."

"Hello?! Is anybody there? Please I need help," says a familiar, disembodied voice.

We run forward to find a see through blue wall, and on the other side was an Asari in a green and white version of Chakwas' uniform suspended in midair.

"Oh thank the goddess," she said sounding relieved. "Are you people here to exterminate the machines?"

"You could say that. We're..." I tried to say but was distracted when I made eye contact with Liara. The game hardly did her justice. It always mentioned that Asari were viewed as highly attractive by all species, but pixels can't compare to real life. Liara was always my favorite character. I don't know why, I just thought her character was really well done. I really only had my Shep romance her because the other option was Ash and I didn't particularly care for her. Weird considering she hasn't really shown me any problems now that I'm here. Everyone's still waiting for me to say something and... I'm staring aren't I? Time to make an awkward recovery! "...we're uh... ya know? I'll just, uh, I'll just let the Commander explain it to you..." I finish, my cheeks feeling slightly warm.

Wrex chuckles behind me and mutters, "Smooth kid..."

Shepard starts explaining the situation to a confused looking Liara while I glare at Wrex.

"You're lucky you're a massive Krogan battle-master who could kill me without weapons and both hands tied behind your back..." I say to him.

This just made him laugh more. "You may not be smooth, but at least you're smart." Laugh it up Wrex... I then notice Tali holding a hand over where her mouth would be and shaking a little bit. "You too Tali?"

"I'm sorry," the mechanic says, "but it was pretty funny...it's like...nevermind," her stifled laughter cutting her off.

I just shake my head, feeling slightly embarrassed. I mean Tali is the last person to laugh at this! She's super awkward when she tried flirting with Shepard... but I can't really mention that. I turned my attention back to the conversation with Liara. "...wanted to capture me, or kill me. I'm not entirely certain. I came in here and activated this Prothean barrier curtain. I must have pressed the wrong button however, because I found myself trapped in this."

"Any idea how we can get in there to let you out?" Shepard asks.

"Well..." Liara started to say but was cut off by Ashley.

"Commander do you think that's a good idea? Her mother is one of the people behind this after all."

"My mother? What does Benezia have to do with this?" Liara asked completely bewildered.

"Does that answer your question Chief? Our task was to extract Dr. T'Soni, and we are going to complete it regardless of her affiliation, remember?" Shepard says sternly. "As you now know, she has no knowledge of her mother's actions."

"Benezia and I have not spoken in many years. We did not leave on the... best of terms," Liara says sounding somewhat regretful. "...but it does not answer my question: what does she have to do with this?"

"Benezia is Saren Arterius' second in command..." Shepard says almost apologetically.

"No she wouldn't... at least not willingly, and even if she did, I would never join that Turian bastard," Liara states. "Now is not the time though... If you go down a level you may be able to find a way to get in here. I would much rather go with you than be taken captive by those Geth."

"We'll be up in a few minutes hopefully," Shepard says while giving the doctor a nod. "Come on team, stop laughing at the Corporal and move out." At that, everyone starts giving stifled laughs. Except for Wrex. He's laughing full on. He could obviously give a shit if I knew.

"Awww... Come on Shepard!" I said while facepalming.

"You weren't getting off the hook that easy rookie. Come on, we still have a job to do." she says while jogging off, the rest of the team following close behind.

I stay behind for a second, start walking off, and then looked at Liara, "Sit tight, we'll be back there shortly," and I give the blue forcefield a tap with the bottom of my left fist. I took a step forward to catch up with the ground team but something tugged on my left arm preventing me from moving forward.

What the... my hand is still stuck to the forcefield? How? I grab my left forearm, giving it a forceful tug, just for it to do nothing. In fact, pulling it made my arm go in farther. I suddenly feel a fierce tug towards the forcefield, my entire body going through the thing until I was right next to Liara and in a similar position, unable to move.

"How did you do that?" she asks with a look of confusion.

"I have no idea!" I say while struggling to get out of my predicament. "It's not exactly like I planned on doing this. I touched it and here I am!" Seriously, what is up with this place? First the weird forcefield on the surface that protects me, and now one that's trying to eat me...

Echoes started sounding in the distance, indicating a firefight. "Will your friends be alright?" Liara asks looking concerned.

"While I'm flattered that you think I'm such an important asset to the team..." I start, "I'm -"

"Actually, I meant because they were fighting many enemies..." Liara interrupts.

-_- ...

"Oh... you were joking... I see," she says. She looks away, her cheeks turning a darker shade of blue.

"Yea... Just a joke. No but seriously, they'll be fine. We took down two armatures and a colossus to get in here, entirely on foot. Not an experience I want to repeat anytime soon..."

"That must have been the quake I felt. These ruins aren't entirely stable. Also I apologize if this conversation gets... awkward. I haven't been around many humans in my lifetime." The gunfire below us dies down.

"Not a problem," I say. "I know the feeling. I was raised mostly among my own kind and now I'm suddenly in a crew with almost every alien imaginable." I'd mention that I didn't even think any of this is real, but that might be harder to explain...

"Still getting used to all of it myself. Must be even stranger for you."

"Why would you say that?"

"Well... Asari live for a millenia. Just as you get acclimatized to something, the universe throws something new at you and ya gotta change things up."

"I'm actually young by Asari standards, 106, barely considered more than a child. The biggest thing to happen in my lifetime is your species finding its way to the Citadel."

"Damn. Humans are lucky to make it to 150. Not sure if it's a blessing or a curse..."

"Understandable..." Suddenly we hear yelling but can't make it out. Then a voice sounded above the others "O'CONNOR!" it screams. That's Shepard.

"COMMANDER! I'M UP HERE!"

"WHERE THE HELL DID YOU GO!?"

"I KIND OF NEVER LEFT! IT'S... HARD TO EXPLAIN! COME BACK UP HERE!" I hear footsteps approaching rapidly as Shepard runs back up to my position. She sees me and just shakes her head.

"Jesus rook... How did you do that?" she asks looking confused and not entirely pleased.

"Don't ask me! I just touched the barrier and here I am!" She walks up to the barrier and touches it as well. Nothing happened. "Just my luck I suppose?" I said with a nervous laugh.

"Just sit tight... We found a mining laser down there that should be able to blow through the rock underneath you. We'll make our way up from there."

"Just be careful Commander. Dr. T'Soni mentioned that these ruins aren't entirely stable."

"Please, just call me Liara."

"Noted. Rick, Liara, you'll be outta there in a second," She says as she runs off.

"Your Commander has a very... well for lack of a better term, commanding presence," she says with a hint of admiration.

"Tell me about it... I was just a colonist. She came in and saved my ass and now I'm on her ground team, which is one of, if not _the _last place I thought I'd be." It's kinda true. If somebody had told me that I'd be fighting Geth with Shepard and crew the next day, I'd have laughed in their face. Guess the jokes on me...

A large quake interrupts my thoughts as the entire structure I was suspended in starts shaking uncontrollably.

"Just blew through the wall with a mining laser Corporal. We're on our way," Shepard barks through my comm.

"The team got through, they'll be here shortly," I say, updating Liara on the situation.

"Thank the goddess... I've been stuck here for a while now. I never thought I'd say this but I can't wait to get out of this dig site." Liara says with a laugh.

"I can imagine..." I respond. A minute or two passes, Shepard and the rest of the team still not surfacing to free us. Awkward silence...again. I hate silence. I don't know why. Well that's not true. I love it if I'm alone. But I'm not alone right now.

"So..." I say breaking the silence with a somewhat cheesy grin on my face, "you come here often?" This obviously confuses her.

"Well, I've been on this dig site for a while now, so yes?"

"Relax Liara, it was just another joke," I say while laughing. "You weren't kidding about not understanding humans."

"Well, I've never really been good with social interactions," she says. "It's partly why I picked this career. I can work on my own, and I honestly prefer it this way. Just me and the mysteries of the Protheans..."

"Doesn't it get lonely?" I ask. "I mean, I'm all for alone time but to spend so much time in a creepy old ruin? It has to get to you eventually. Not to mention it has to be dangerous."

"As for the danger, I've never really been in a situation that my biotics could not handle. I've encountered some varren and maybe a few slavers but never a synthetic army. And while I'll admit that I do miss certain people every now and then, I can honestly say the urge for company is never overwhelming. I never really excelled with social interactions."

"Well, whatever floats your boat..." I say with a sigh.

"I do not understand. I do not own a boat," she replies, sounding perplexed.

"Just a human saying. You should pry start getting used to them." We suddenly heard footsteps approaching.

"Liara, what do I press on this console to let you guys out?" Shepard says from behind us."

"There should only be one row of glyphs. Hit the ones farthest right," she says looking back over her shoulder."

"Understood," Shepard replies. "You should be free...now."

Suddenly everything goes white, and I was no longer suspended in the air. I was standing... on nothing? Seriously? Could this day get any more confusing?

"Feros..." I heard a deep rumbling voice say. I just had to jinx myself didn't I? Now I'm hearing voices. "It is crucial that you be apart of the team on Feros..." It echoes again.

"That's great and all, but why? And who are you?" I ask.

"Later..." the booming voice says, and then reality snapped back. I was on Therum again, standing on the ground of the sterile white cell where I was previously suspended. I start looking around, confused as hell.

"Rick?" Tali asked. "Are you alright?"

"Did anybody else just hear something?" I ask, trying not to reveal anything that was said in case I really was hearing things.

"The only thing I heard," Shepard starts, "was you landing on the ground. Liara, why are you still locked there?" I turn to notice that I was the only one who was let down.

"I do not know..." she says sounding confused. "Try it again maybe?"

Shepard moved back to the console, pressing the same buttons, and then Liara lands on the ground. She takes a step forward but falls over. I leapt forward, catching her.

"Easy there Doc," I say, "We don't need you hurting yourself. No doubt we have plenty of Geth ahead of us waiting to do that for you."

"I will be fine," she mutters. "As I said, I've been there for a while. I did not realize how weak I was feeling. Just give me a moment." I stand there for a few minutes, making sure she was fine, and then help her on her feet when she is ready. There's a sudden quake.

"Glad you're feeling better Liara, cause this place is coming down. We need to move," Shepard says. "Can you operate this lift?"

"Yes, I'll take us to the top level where we can get out," Liara says, pressing some buttons. The lift jerks to life, moving upwards as fast as it could.

"Joker!" Shepard barks into her comm, "This place is coming down. We need you to lock on to my signal and pick us up, ASAP!"

"Aye, Aye Commander. Be there in 8 minutes," is the pilot's reply.

"He needs to move faster," Tali mumbles, the quakes around us getting more violent.

"Don't worry Tali," I say while putting my hand on her shoulder, "From what I hear, Joker's the best pilot in the Alliance fleet. He won't let us down."

"It's not Mr. Moreau's flight skills I'm worried about," she replies. "It's this building's stability."

"If I die in here, I'll kill em..." Wrex states forcefully. I start laughing. A lot. That's easily one of my favorite Wrex lines from the game. Everyone else just looks at me like I'm off my rocker, which after what I just saw, may very well be true.

My laughter is interrupted as we reach the top level. We start to run out to safety, but find a Krogan and a small squad of Geth blocking our way. There's definitely more Geth here than were in the game. Awesome.

"Surrender... Or don't. That would be more fun," says the massive Krogan.

"In case you didn't notice, this entire place is coming down!" I yell, hoping he would see sense, unlike in the game.

"I know... Exhilarating, isn't it?!" exclaims the Krogan, arms pointing to the sky as if this was all wondrous. Guess he won't see sense.

"Stand down whelp," Wrex says gruffly. "If you wanna settle this we can do it outside..."

"Urdnot Wrex?" asks the battle-master sounding somewhat confused. "It's been a while hasn't it?"

"I'm sorry, but if I don't remember you it means you weren't worth fighting," was his brief reply.

Dayum Wrex. If we weren't in a super dangerous situation, I'd high five you for that one. Or high three in your case? I don't know.

"It does not matter," the nameless battle-master says. "When I kill you my clan will thank me." That's new. I always had Wrex on Therum and this never happened. I should ask him about it later. Or not. It shouldn't be surprising that a bad-ass as old as Wrex has made some enemies over his lifetime.

"Thanks for taking down the barriers by the way," he states while returning his gaze to Shepard. Now hand over the doctor."

There is a sudden bang that we heard over the collapsing ruins, followed by a Geth jerking to the side with spurts of white splattering the wall. "We don't have time for this," Shepard says behind the smoking barrel of her sniper rifle. "Kill this asshole so we can get out of here."

"Couldn't have said it better myself," says the battle-master as he starts glowing blue. He launches what I'm assuming is a throw in Shepard's direction, but she manages to roll out of the way in time. Then comes the volley of Geth fire. I run into cover, just barely making it there as my shields go out. Wait for recharge...

Shields still out... This fight would be a lot easier if it weren't in a circular room. I always lost track of that Krogan in the game. The Geth not so much. I looked around as my HUD indicates my shields were recharged to see that I lost the Krogan.

How do you lose a Krogan? I have no idea, but the rest of the team doesn't seem to notice either because they're occupied with the small army of Geth. Shepard's crouching over by a wall column trying to snipe a Geth platform, Ashley's peppering a Geth with constant fire while Tali pops another one with her shotgun, Liara's crouching behind a wall column trying not to get shot while a Krogan is sneaking up on her, and Wrex is ripping off-

Wait... Krogan sneaking up on Liara. Fuck, why do I have to be the only one to notice this. Better do something about that.

I quickly run over to where Liara is hiding on the edge of the circular room, switching my vindicator to full-auto as I do so. I slide into cover along the edge of the lift, and then round the corner with my rifle ready to shoot, and not a second too soon either. The Krogan was just about to get to where Liara was hiding, shotgun ready to fire.

Seems like a good time to distract him. I unload with the vidicator until it is about to overheat, rounds bouncing off his shields, and depleting them fairly fast. That definitely got his attention.

Oh shit, that _definitely_ got his attention, which is now bad for me. The Krogan starts glowing blue, and I duck into cover... but nothing happens. That must've been a barrier. I round the opposite corner, my rifle finally having cooled, and start to fire again. Unfortunately the Krogan's reactions were fast, and before I could do much I get hit in the chest with a blue sphere and fly into a wall, knocking the air out of my lungs and making my vision blurry.

This has got to stop happening. First the explosion outside and now this. I'll be lucky if I walk out of here with just a concussion. I get to my feet right as the battle-master makes it in front of me.

"I'm going to enjoy this..." he said. Naturally.

He curls his hand into a fist and hits me in the chest with a quick but powerful punch, sending me into the wall nearby. As I hit the wall, I felt the air get knocked out my lungs...again, along with a sharp pain in my chest. I inhale, trying to get my bearings, but find it painful and difficult to breathe. "Well, that's a broken rib..." I mutter as I inhale again, just to find it even more painful. "Or possibly four..."

"What're you complaining about?" the battle-master asks.

Right... still have to deal with him and not die. I raise my rifle and start shooting, but the metal fragments bounce harmlessly off his shields. Before I could even get his shields down he kicks my weapon aside, knocking it out of my hands.

"I want this to be personal, no weapons," he says evilly. "Besides, your friends are still occupied with the Geth so you're all mine..." I look over just to see that the rest of my teammates were indeed still fighting with a rather large amount of Geth. Any weapon I try to use is just gonna get knocked aside, and if I toss a grenade it'll kill us both... Damn it, what do I do? Well, I guess I can get some distance between us.

I started crawling backwards, hoping that maybe one of the others would be able to help. I don't get very far however, as the Krogan stomps on my right lower leg to stop me from moving any further. I grit my teeth, dealing with the pain.

"Your attempts are futile..." he mutters, while increasing the pressure on my leg. I reach down to try and do something about it, but it's no use. He's way too heavy. Right as I think its helpless, my hand brushes over the handle of my combat knife. That gives me an idea...

"Do you always toy with your victims? I thought the Krogan didn't waste time on the weak?" I ask, hand slowly drawing the combat knife.

"You're right..." he says, seemingly thinking it over. "You may be weak, but you know our way." He grabs me by the neck, lifting me up to meet his eyes. Thankfully he didn't notice me flip my knife in my hand so that the blade was behind my forearm.

"For that, I will make this quick." He reaches back, his hand wreathed in blue, and I notice something else wreathed in blue...

Liara! She must've seen me draw the blade.

The Krogan makes a movement as if to punch me with his biotic fist, but couldn't. She must be holding his hand back. "What the..." he says as he turns to see what is holding him. "You Asari bitch!"

He turns back to me, anger clear in his eyes, and as he does, I flipped the blade around in my hand and thrust it forward, right where his plate met his skull. I made sure to drive it in deep.

The sound the Krogan makes from me doing this can not be described. It chills me to the bone, almost making me feel bad for doing it, but then I remembered he had just tried to kill me. Regardless it did its job, and the enraged battle-master dropped me. He started grabbing at his face in a frenzy, but he could not quite grip the blade. I took the opportunity to grab the shotgun that my foe dropped. I put it up to my shoulder and loosed a round at him.

This knocks him off balance and as a result of his frantic behavior, he topples to the ground. I drop the shotgun and draw my pistol in my right hand, the other holding my damaged rib cage, and start limping over to the battle-master who is crying in pain. I nod to Liara, giving her a silent thank you as I pass. I stand at the head of my enemy, facing the opposite direction he is, and stare down at the Krogan. After a few seconds he stays still, realization dawning upon him as he stares back up at me.

I know Zaeed never really detailed how to get a Krogan head plate off, but I think this will work.

"I'm going to enjoy this..." I say, wincing from the pain as I breathe in. "And I will make it quick. Can't guarantee painless however..." I lift up my leg and kick down and forward hitting the handle of my blade still impaled in his head, making the knife act as a lever on the Krogan's head plate and prying it clean off. The scream he emitt as blood comes rushing out is once again indescribable. He writhes even more now that his head plate is gone. I fire a few shots into the vulnerable Krogan and he stops moving. His lifeless eyes stare up toward the ceiling.

I look over to the rest of the team to see that they have finished the Geth. I pick up the weapons that were knocked away from me, and walk back over to Liara, who hasn't moved or spoken since I killed the Krogan. "C'mon," I say to her sounding exhausted. "We have to get going before this places comes down on top of us, which is gonna be soon judging from the sounds of the quake."

"R...right," she replies. "Here let me help you." She throws my arm around her shoulders, helping me walk up to the rest of the team.

"Good, you guys are ok. We need to leave now," Shepard says as we approach.

"Don't need to tell us twice," I reply. We move forward running into a barrier curtain that stops us.

"We'll that's great..." Ashley mutters. Next thing we know the curtain goes down, and everybody is hauling ass out of these ruins, or in my case hobbling. We make it halfway through the catwalks when Shepard suddenly stops running and looks behind us. Her eyes grew wide. "MOVE, MOVE, MOVE!" she yells as she took up the rearmost spot.

Despite the fact that I had a few near-death experiences already, this one's probably the worst. Giant rocks are falling everywhere, the catwalks are breaking apart, and I have to limp through it all because of my injuries. We make it to the long tunnel to the surface right as a massive rock falls behind us and destroys the cat walks entirely. "Liara," I say. "Just keep moving forward, and don't think about the impending doom that is literally right behind us."

"I wasn't," she replies. "At least until you mentioned it."

We finally make it out of the tunnel and we are greeted by the Normandy hovering and waiting for us.

"Thank the goddess..." Liara mutters as we all slowed our pace.

"Don't thank anybody yet," Shepard yells from behind us. "And don't slow down, we have lava coming up fast. Get on the ship!"

"Sounds about right," I mutter through heavy breaths as we pick up the pace again. I'm really hoping I don't have a collapsed lung right about now.

We run up the ramp to the cargo bay, everybody visibly relaxing as we get inside.

"Joker! Close the bay doors and get us out of here!" Shepard orders.

"Can do Commander..." Joker replies as the door starts to shut. Everyone stands there breathing heavily, clearly exhausted. The faint feeling of the Normandy moving starts only to have the inertial dampeners kick in and make us feel like we aren't moving at all. That's when the pain kicked in.

The adrenaline must've worn off. My chest is killing me, it hurts when I breathe, my leg hurts, basically my entire body hurts. That mission could've gone a lot better than it did. On the bright side, we got Liara outta the ruins and nobody died. I mean I almost died countless times, but I didn't. So I guess that's good? I gotta be more careful if I'm gonna make it through these missions. Five near death experiences in one mission is about five too many for my taste.

"Ok team, you have twenty minutes to get ready for debrief," Shepard says.

"Yes Commander," is the majority response that comes from everybody.

"Except you O'Connor," Shepard states as everybody except Liara and I disperse from the crowd. "You took a beating down there."

"But -" I say before getting interrupted.

"No buts," she orders. "Yes, you held your own, but you also took some damage that should've killed you. You did good, and I want you on the next mission so you can improve."

"Ok? Then why aren't I going to debrief?"

"Because it isn't necessary. You know what happened down there and I can fill you in on our next move after, but that won't much matter if your injuries are slowly killing you, now will it?"

"No Commander..." I say grudgingly. But she is right. For all I know I could have a collapsed lung right now from a broken rib. Plus there was that weird voice on Therum that said I needed to be on Feros when we went there. There's a good chance we're heading there next so I need to be in fighting shape.

"Good. Just to be clear, if you're not in the MedBay by the time the debrief is over, you're confined to the ship until I see fit," she says, dead serious.

"Understood Commander. I'll be there as fast as I can limp," I reply with a grin.

"I believe I can help with that Corporal," says Liara. "I will help him up there and then find my way to the command center."

"Thanks Liara," I say. "I really appreciate it."

"Good. I should go though. Need to get ready," Shepard states as she walks away.

Ha! She said it! The famous "I should go." I just got way too excited about that. Back to getting healed though, cause the pain is getting way worse now. Breathing is kind of a chore...

"So Liara... think its about time to head off to the elevator?" I ask.

"Yes, although I'm unsure as to the location of the MedBay. You will have to tell me how to get there," she replies.

"I think I can manage that," I say back. "Let's go." We walk over to the elevator and hit the button for it to come down.

"Hey kid, I wanted to talk to you," I hear a deep gravelly voice say from behind me.

"I'd like that Wrex," I say sounding out of breath. "But the thing is... I'm having a tough time breathing... right now... Maybe later?"

"Heh... sure. Forgot you squishy humans can't take much of a punch. I'll swing by later on," he replies.

"Looking forward to it," I say, right as the elevator door opened. Time to go get healed.

* * *

**A/N: Two updates in a short period of time?! What?! Things worked out! Yay! I was gonna break it up further, but couldn't find a really good time for that in this chapter. As always, leave any thoughts in a review.**

**I'm also going to be replying to them in my A/N's from now on so...**

**Cuhnadian: I'm really glad you're enjoying the story. Action scenes and keeping the tense are two of my biggest problems so I'll work on those. It didn't help that I started this as a flashback and it's all present tense now either, aha. Hopefully I'll master both of those soon. As for apeshit driver Shepard, I drove like a madman in the game and naturally had to carry it over.**

**And that's all for now. It's late here. I'm tired.**

**Rfalzar out.**


	9. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8: Good Intentions**

I've been in the MedBay for about 30 minutes now, sitting here with an oxygen mask on my face due to my difficulty with breathing.

"Those scans done yet Doctor?" I asked.

"Just about Corporal," she said. "Normally it would've been a quick process, but with the beating you took I decided to perform an extensive one, just to make sure there aren't any hidden issues. Plus the Commander sent an order over for an extensive scan anyhow. She mentioned something about Wrex thinking you may have biotic potential so I had to add to the scan to check for biotic nodes. I highly doubt anything new will come out, however. The results from your preliminary scan were normal, but if it somehow missed them, it would be useful to have another biotic so I can't blame her."

"That's what I told them... I've never had it before... I don't have it now... and they don't develop overnight," I said between breaths.

"So you've never had any biotic episodes before?" Chakwas asked.

"Nope." I wanted to say we didn't discover eezo where I came from, but thought it'd be best to keep that under wraps.

"Well, nothing is impossible, but it is highly unlikely that you would've come this far in life without anybody ever noticing any indicators."

What am I supposed to tell her? Oh, sorry, nobody bothered to test me for something that's non-existent from my time era/dimension? I've only been here for a little under a week so there's no way in hell that I can possibly be a biotic?

"So I hear..." I said. Works better than anything else I can come up with.

Suddenly, Chakwas' omni-tool starts beeping. "Looks like the scans have been fully processed," she informed me.

The door to the MedBay opens and Shepard walks in with Liara, both looking a little worse for wear.

"Shepard, you couldn't have come at a better time," said Chakwas as she turns around. "We just finished scans on... are you two all right?"

"Been better Doc," Shepard replied with a grin. "I just need some rest is all."

She then turns to me. "Joker plotted the course to our next destination. Normally I'd head somewhere for some shore leave but we don't necessarily have time to do that with the colonists in danger. We'll be there in just under two days. Hopefully that's enough time for everyone to recover?"

"I'm actually just about to find out myself Commander," Chakwas replied. She then looked to Liara, "I don't think we've been introduced, Dr. Karin Chakwas."

"Dr. Liara T'Soni," she said. "It is a pleasure to meet you. I was hoping you could spare some time to do a quick check-up on me once you have taken care of Rick."

"Most certainly, I just need to check these scans for the Corporal. Have a seat on the bed there," Chakwas replied while pointing to the bed next to me. "I just need to get something from the back to show you these results..." And with that she walks away.

"I'll be at my locker making some adjustments to my weapons if you need me. Just try to catch me sooner rather than later. I'm exhausted and plan on getting some sleep soon. Let the Doctor know for me will you?" Shepard told us as she walked out in the hall.

"Not a problem Commander."

I sat there, half asleep, the only sound that of the oxygen pumping into me.

A minute or two passed. What the hell is taking Chakwas so long? Might as well just relax...

"So... do you come here often?" Liara asked with a sheepish smile on her face.

I chuckled but it ended up turning into a cough. "Unfortunately, yes Liara. I do," I said with a smile while looking over to see that she was laughing a little as well. "Been in here the past two days... first for the standard Alliance vaccines... and gene boosts, and now this... If I can avoid it I'd rather not... stay cooped up in a sick bed, however... But I appreciate the joke."

She just smiled, looked away, and then returned to her own devices.

"How'd debrief go?" I asked, trying to start the conversation again.

"It was... interesting," she said. "I received insight into how humans work a little. Your pilot... Joker I believe his name is, made jokes as to how we almost died."

"Yea, but he _did_ save our asses... The least he gets is a couple jokes."

"That is what your Commander said. It will take a little while to get used to, but it is definitely interesting..."

She quieted down and looked down. So much for keeping up a conversation with her.

"I never got a chance to properly thank you," she said after a little while. "You saved my life."

"You're welcome I guess... We were just... following orders. The Commander is who... you ought to be thanking," I replied.

"Not that. Yes I suppose thanks is in order for getting me out of the ruins, but I was talking about the Krogan. I did not see him approaching, and the rest of the team was distracted by Geth. Had you not rushed over to save me, I would have been captured or... worse," she says with a hint of worry in her voice.

"I was just doing... what I thought was right. Damsel in distress... how could i resist?" I say with a smirk.

She blushes a little bit. "You are... too kind. Still, thank you. I can't help but feel partially responsible for your current predicament."

"It's pry more my fault. I'm the one... who thought that fighting with a Krogan... one on one was a good idea," I say while shaking my head. "Lesson learned I guess. Besides, it'll take more than... some nobody Krogan... to keep me out of the fight."

She giggled. "Regardless. I guess you could say I owe you one."

"At the rate this mission is going... I'm sure you'll pay me back... in no time. If you hadn't noticed yet... I'm semi-accident prone," I say while gesturing to my beaten up body.

"Were you like that before you joined the Alliance?"

"Pretty sure I was born that way..."

"Hmmm..."

"What?"

"Just thinking that you might have made an odd career choice given your circumstances," she said with a smirk.

"Oh, believe me... becoming a marine... was definitely not... my first choice. Circumstances dictated otherwise."

"How so?"

"Well..." The door to the back room opens and Chakwas returns, sporting a confused look on her face. "Remind me to tell you later... Doc's back."

"Dr. T'Soni, I'll check up on you right after I put Rick under, he'll need surgery..." said the Doctor. Kinda expected that... First major surgery I've ever had is in the Mass Effect world. I'm sure this'll be the first of many now that I'm willingly throwing myself in harm's way.

"As for you Mister O'Connor... well I have some good news, some bad news, and some... strange news," she continued. "I apologize for it taking so long, I had to compare your results to the last one to make sure I wasn't seeing things. First things first: bad news is you have two broken ribs and two fractured ribs causing the difficulty breathing, your leg is badly bruised and semi fractured, and you have a minor concussion. Good news is that all of that is non-life threatening and easily fixed. The bruising can be solved with an internal dose of medi-gel, the fractures will be filled with a medi-gel mixture specifically designed bones, and the broken ones can be set and repaired with no problem. Should be ready for action by the next mission, but I advise you to take it easy if you get called to duty. No more fist fights with Krogan."

"Sounds good Doctor. What's the strange news?" I asked. I have a mix of emotions running through me right now. First, some injuries that would usually keep me laid up for a few weeks, if not months, can be so easily fixed, which is awesome. The other main emotions would be confusion and anxiety about the so-called "strange" news.

"Yes... well," she started, sounding somewhat confused. "I compared the results of this test to the results from the last round of tests, and the old ones show no signs of any biotic nodes, while this new one shows fully developed ones... It seems you do have biotics, but they only recently developed. I have never seen anything like this happen before..."

I have no idea what to say. How is this possible? You have to be born with the ability to use biotics. Well that's not true. They could be brought about later in life with further exposure to element zero, but the common factor in that is in-utero eezo exposure, which I did not have because it wasn't discovered when I was alive. It would however explain Wrex's comments and the weird barrier thing though.

What could possibly have done this to me? Let's back-track. I don't think it was Josh's experiments, then I flew through space, landed on Eden Prime. Nothing since then could've done it. I know I'm forgetting something... like that weird cloud thingy. AKA The only thing I can think of that would give me biotics. That's pretty much the only thing that could've done it. What the hell was that thing? I didn't think space clouds could give somebody powers.

Well, I can't really do anything about it now. Might as well embrace it. I always thought biotics were awesome so I'm not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

"Well Doctor," I said, "would all the activity around starships and stuff lately... have somehow triggered biotic development? That's been known to happen right? I mean, I was right by... a ship when its core exploded. That could've had something to do with it."

"It's highly unusual, but it's not impossible if you had minor element zero exposure in the womb. That very well could be the case," she replied. "I guess all that's left to do is decide what we want to do with this information."

"Well, we have two options right?" I asked. "Install an amp... and start training my powers... or ignore them and keep on as is." She nodded. "Well, I'm about to go under for surgery right? Why not install it now... and kill two birds with one stone? I've always thought it'd be cool to have biotics so I'm all for it... Plus, there's plenty of talented individuals here..." I say looking over to Liara, "to help train me."

"It's the least I could do after you saved my life," offered the Asari.

"Well, it's settled. I'm ready whenever you are Doctor Chakwas," I said.

"It just so happens to be your lucky day Corporal," chuckled the Doctor. "When we were at the Citadel an old friend of mine sent me some new L4 amps from the Ascension project. They have a built in VI, so it'll help you acclimate to your abilities faster. Given our mission, that'll no doubt be a blessing. More biotics on the battlefield is a good thing."

"Sounds good. Let's get this started."

"I'm going to put you under," stated Chakwas while she walked over to me, starting to hook things up. "While that's happening, I'm going to tend to Liara, so if you'll excuse me..."

She walked over to the other bed, pulled out a privacy curtain, and started to talk to Liara.

In other news, I'm apparently going to be a biotic! I still have no idea how, but I'm not going to complain. Adepts were always my favorite class in the game. The ability to both control the battlefield and devastate opponents was by far the most useful strategy in my opinion. It's gonna be a ton of work to get there, but I'm willing to put in the effort to be a Jedi. Well Jedi-ish I guess...

I feel... sleepy. That must be the anesthetic kicking in. The pain's also going away. Definitely the anesthetic That's nice. I think I'm... I think I'm just gonna sleep for a little while...

* * *

My sleep starts out as it usually does: blackness, but then it takes a turn towards the strange because a dream kicks in. I call this weird because I usually don't dream at all. Another reason it's weird is because the dream is almost like the vision Shepard sees from the beacon. Visions fly by. Visions of strangely armored creatures with four arms reminiscent of the prawns from District 9, only they seem much more humanoid. The armor indicated a Human-like head but with four eyes, five-fingered hands, and legs curved like that of a Quarian. Some visions seemed to pause so I got a better look at what was happening, but mostly it was just quick bursts of things, almost like a video on fast forward.

The visions showed a civilization close to the time frame I had originally come from. A peaceful civilization, and then a series of massive explosions ruins the serenity. The rest just flashes by; fighting, war, people fighting who knows what, cities falling, planets destroyed, and then Reapers. Too many Reapers to count. More fighting, death, and destruction, and then nothing. Silence. Peace. And then blackness.

* * *

Streaks of white interrupted the blackness. Scratch that, streaks of blue. I tried opening my eyes to see the hazy outline of the MedBay slowly come back into focus.

"Ah... He wakes," I hear a female voice say.

I looked over to the source of the noise, my vision starting to clear up, to find Shepard sitting across the room with a smirk on her face.

"Just a couple more hours Shepard... Still sleepy..." I said back.

"No can do Corporal, you've been out for 15 hours. We need you up and awake for part of this trip to make sure the repairs took."

Oh yeah, I had surgery. Stupid battle-master... It could be worse I guess. I could be him: dead and buried in lava.

"I feel fine Shepard. A little sore in the ribs but I'm ready for action if you need me. That is as long as Chakwas gives the go ahead," I say groggily.

"Just don't strain yourself Rick," says a new voice from the other side. "I don't want to have to patch you up again so soon. Take it easy down there."

"Can do Chakwas... Jus' lemme go back to sleep..." I was actually awake. I just wanted a little time to process the... whatever it was that I just saw. I don't dream. Like ever. So for me to even have one is strange, let alone one so realistic. I'll just chalk it up to sedative induced hysteria...

"Doctor, how much sedative did you give him?"

"There shouldn't be any remaining in his system. He's just being lazy."

Shepard laughs. "Hit him with the salts then. He needs to be up."

I hear a snap and then smell one of the most potent things I have ever had the displeasure of smelling. I jolt straight up, wide awake. "I'm up! Ok, I'm up!"

The two women just laughed a little.

"What the hell?! What was that?!"

"Smelling salts Corporal!" Shepard exclaimed. "You were disobeying a direct order to wake up. We fixed that."

"Ok, I get it. Lesson learned. Can you never do that again?"

"Only if I have to. Chakwas here has some post-surgery info for you. If you need me I'll be doing rounds," she says while walking out the door.

I look over to Chakwas. "So Doc, what's the news? Everything go alright?"

"Everything went fine Corporal. You'll be a little sore for the next day or two, but other than that, you'll be fine."

"Even the amp implant?"

"Yes, especially that. The implant took far quicker than I had anticipated. Might have something to do with just having received your genetic modifications so recently, but it's all set. Just a little bit of info on it for you: the implant has its own VI integrated into it that will interface with both your suit's VI and your Omni-tool. You can also use speech commands. The L4's require a cochlear connection so it can talk to you, so to speak. You need simply activate it from your omni-tool."

"So... you're saying there's gonna be a little voice inside my head?" I asked while touching the minor protrusion on the back of my neck just under the hairline where the amp jack was.

"Essentially, yes."

"Great! I'm sure he'll fit in with all the others!"

The elderly Doctor just stares at me.

"Errr... joking... I don't actually have multiple personalities."

"Right... Just try not to joke about that in the future. I've had unpleasant experiences with patients like that."

"Care to share?"

"Not particularly..." she replied with a shudder. "Moving on. Take it easy for the next couple of hours. You're still technically recovering from major surgery. I took special precautions to ensure that you can be combat ready by the time we arrive at the colony, but don't do anything too strenuous. Also try not to tax the implant quite so much. It's still adjusting."

"Got it. Essentially I have permission to be a lazy bum until Feros."

"No. I would highly advise some light exercise and getting used to your implant. That alone should consume most of your time."

"I was planning on doing that anyhow," I said with a laugh. "Other than that, I'm free to go though, right?"

"By all means Corporal," she said while gesturing to the door. She then returned to her desk and started typing on her terminal.

I gingerly rotated my body in bed just to test out how I was feeling. I swung my legs over the edge and just sat there rotating my neck, arms, and torso and flexed my legs.

"You do good work, Doc. If I didn't know any better, I'd say I just got in a minor scuffle the other day."

She laughed. "Well Captain Anderson picked the best when he staffed this ship, and I aim to be the very best."

Like no one ever was! To patch them up is my real test, to heal them is my cause! Annnndd I'm getting carried away. Stop doing that brain.

I stood out of the bed and started walking towards the door. Again, I have to praise the lengths that medicine has come these days. After everything that I went through the other day, all that I feel is the equivalent of a minor bruise where I was injured. I was about to walk out of the door when I realized that all I had on was some underwear. Fun-fact: I didn't have any extra boxers with me when I came on this ship. I blame my lack of foresight. Or the whole getting thrust into a different universe thing. I can't tell.

Thankfully the uniforms given to me came with boxer-briefs. Unfortunately, they don't exactly leave much to the imagination. Then there's the whole getting used to a different type of undergarments ordeal that sucks, but the bigger problem right now is that I almost kinda streaked through the Normandy.

I turned to look at the Doctor. "Hey...uh, Doctor Chakwas?"

"Yes?" she says while looking at me.

"Where's my armor and stuff?"

"Oh yes, Dr. T'Soni was kind enough to take your belongings down to Ashley so she could get them in fighting condition again for Feros."

"And lemme guess," I say pinching the brow of my nose, "She didn't bring any clothes for me?"

"No... No she didn't... Oh..." She said, her eyebrows raising a little in realization. "Unfortunately, I don't have anything you can cover up with to take with you. I wouldn't be too worried about it. Most of the showers on the ship are public, so it's not really anything that would shock the crew."

"That's soooo much more comforting Doc," I say, making sure to lace every word with sarcasm. Oh well. I'm really glad I'm in better shape now if I'm gonna be forced to hike across the Normandy half naked. Not like I could really avoid this given my current circumstances...

I turn back around and head out the Med-bay doors to go towards the elevators. Thankfully there aren't many people around, and the ones who are present are far too occupied doing... whatever it is they do on this level.

"Oh and Corporal?" Chakwas asked from behind me.

I did a half turn and raised my eyebrows.

"I hope you have thick skin. You're gonna need it to get through the crew quarters," she mentioned with a smile on her face. The door closed before I could respond.

Right. She said they'd be used to it. Never said I wouldn't get flak for it. This is gonna be fun. I quickly walked to the elevator. Thankfully it was already on this level and opened immediately. I rushed in, stood on the right side, pressed the button for the third level, and jammed the door close button like there was no tomorrow.

The door started closing. Right as I thought I was home free, I heard a female voice yell out. "Hold the elevator please!"

Of course. Well here goes nothing. My gentlemanly instincts kicked in and my hand halted the door from closing. I then looked to see who was going to be my accomplice on this awkward elevator ride... Liara.

She rounded the corner while looking at the ground. "Thank you for waiting. This elevator moves so slow I don't think I'd make it to the... shuttle bay... in time..." At that point she looked up and saw me standing there. I felt my face instantly heat up and hers turned a darker shade of blue. She quickly looked back down and walked in, standing parallel to me while staring at the wall.

"Shuttle Bay it is," I say as I pressed the button for that level. The doors closed and the elevator started to crawl down to the next level. Damn you and your snail speeds, elevator! Damn you to the deepest pits of Hell!

I bit my lower lip, scratched the back of my neck, and then crossed my arms, acting like this whole thing is entirely normal.

"So... do humans usually-"

"Nope. No we do not."

"It's just that Asari are usually more open about this sort of..."

"Yea, we aren't."

"So... then why are you..."

"I had no clothes in the Med-Bay."

"Chakwas had nothing there to lend you?"

"Nuh-uh."

"What about your armor..." Her eyes shot open in realization and she looked at me. "I'm so sorry, I did not mean to do this to you!"

I just laughed. "Honestly, I'm thankful you took my stuff down for repairs. I need it battle-ready for Feros. This," I said gesturing to myself, "is just a minor hiccup compared to what faulty armor could do. And it's slowly getting less awkward." Which wasn't 100% untrue. "Don't worry about it Liara. I've been through worse." Which was 100% true. The tension in the room seemed to ease a little bit.

"Oh thank the Goddess. It's just that... I just joined the crew, and I don't want to start off negatively with anybody."

I chuckle. "Trust me, you'd have to do waaayyy more than that to piss me off. I'm fairly easy going. Unless you slap me in the face. Bad things happen when people do that."

"How so?" she asked.

"I don't know, it's just this weird thing I have. Last time one of my friends hit my face, I blacked out for a few seconds and when I came to I had him in a head-lock..."

She laughed a little, but had a strange look on her face. "That is good to know. Not that I ever planned on slapping you in the near future."

"The more you know."

The elevator pinged and the door opened up to the crew deck.

"Well, looks like this is my stop," I said as I walked out of the elevator. "I'll see you around Liara, and next time I'll actually be clothed."

She smiled and waved as the elevator door closes. Welp... time to do this. This is gonna suck. A lot. Let the awkward wash upon me like water upon rock!

Or... I can have fun with this. Don't let it be awkward, let it be fun... Yea, that'll work.

I casually strolled past the partition into the dining room. I'm greeted by a large number of the crew that had gathered for their meal. Just keep going...

I make it about halfway through the room, and then I hear something to make me stop mid-step. It was the whistle you hear in a show when a hot chick walks by a construction site. I turn around to see who the culprit was.

Ashley. Naturally. She was sitting amongst some of the female crew members with a shit-eating grin on her face. On the other side was Kaidan sitting with Sergeant Effinger and some other assorted crew members.

"Looking good Corporal!" she yelled. Some of the crew she was sitting with pitched in a "Ow, Ow!"

Welp... now or never I guess.

"You like what you see ladies?" I said while gesturing to myself. "Because I aim to please," I say while pointing to them, winking, and making a 'tch tch' noise. I then started to do my best impersonation of some model poses, which probably came out as the corniest things ever. Hey, if I'm gonna ham it up I might as well go all the way. This brought up laughter from most of the crew, followed by a round of applause.

"Oh please..." Kaidan grumbled after the noise died down. "Go put some clothes on Corporal."

"What's the matter Kaidan? Jealous of this perfect ass?" I asked as sarcastically as I could.

"Ha! Jealous? Eat your heart out Rick," He said with a smirk. "I've been told mine is one of my better qualities, but that's besides the point. Why don't you have clothes on?"

"Didn't have any in the Med-bay when I woke up," I replied while pointing to the area I just came from with an awkward muscle flex pose.

"Well, whatever, go fix that."

"Fiiine..." I say with mock defeat as I turned around. I took another step and then stopped as an idea popped into my head.

"Walk off?" I asked with my back still turned to them.

"What?"

"Do you agree to a walk off?" I ask as I spun around, making sure it was my right side, and did my best blue steel impression.

"What are you talking about?"

"You've never seen that movie?"

"No? What the hell are you talking about?"

"Oh, we're _definitely _gonna have to fix that soon. But that's for another time. You were right, I should probably get dressed. Getting a bit chilly in here..."

"We can tell..." muttered Ash just loud enough for people to hear. This got a chuckle from most of the present crew.

I kinda set myself up on that one didn't I?

I kept looking at Kaidan while my lips pinched together and I pointed in Ash's general direction. "Ignoring you." I then turned and walked down the hallway to my room. As soon as I entered the room, the first thing I did was throw my Omni-tool on my bed and prep the shower until it was the perfect temperature.

As I stood under the warm water, letting it soothe any achey muscles from the mission, only one thing crossed my mind: I'm probably never going to hear the end of it for that little escapade am I?

* * *

After I showered and put on my Alliance uniform, I grabbed some food and took it back to my quarters. I know I kinda brought it on myself, but everybody was heckling me about my previous performance, so I just decided to eat by myself.

I just finished my food when I received a call from Shepard on my Omni-tool. I accepted the call and a small box appeared over the Omni-tool.

"Corporal."

"Commander. How are you?"

"Ok. So... I heard about your antics earlier in the mess hall..."

Pry should've seen that one coming... "Oh... sorry Commander. Couldn't really avoid it. I had no clothes in the Med-bay and well, deflecting awkward into more awkward is sort of a habit of mine..." I reply with a nervous laugh.

"I can't really scold you for half naked antics, God knows I had a few of those moments back in basic..." Wait, _what?_ I did not just hear that. Shepard's supposed to be this down to Earth badass. Given her background, I thought it'd make her all the more serious. Or it could cause her to do the exact opposite and act out. Guess I kinda forgot that she's a person now and not some scripted character.

"... but that's not the point. Just don't do it again," She continued. "I'm trying to keep some semblance of order on this ship."

"Yes, Commander."

"Good. While I have you on the line, did you message your contacts yet?"

"Yes I did. I'll give you the details in debrief tomorrow."

"Sounds good O'Connor. I'll talk to you later."

"Bye Shepard."

I sat at the small table for a few more minutes. I decided to quickly take my food tray out to the kitchen to be washed, and made it back to the room without much hassle.

I walked over to my bed and plopped down on it, trying to think about what I should do. Chakwas said not to strain myself so... I guess I should figure out what's going on with this implant. I bring up the Omni-tool main menu and see that a new tab had been added. It's label read 'L4 Neural Implant.' I tapped it and brought up the main screen for it.

A new window appeared that read 'Would you like to activate your implant?' with a yes or no option. Yes.

A melody suddenly chimed in my head. A robotic sounding male voice followed.

_Thank you for choosing the L4 neural implants. I am your Neurally Implanted Combat Guide, or NIC _(pronounced Nick)_ for short. Biotic enhancement protocols: active. Omni-tool interface: active. Armor VI interaction: active. Error! No armor connected. I will automatically connect to the set of armor that is equipped next. Voice recognition systems: active. If you have any questions, all you have to do is ask._

Talking to myself eh? Well this won't be strange in public places... Whatever.

"Why are you called NIC? What happened to the 'G'?"

_NIC is similar to a name that is fairly common. Trials have shown that NICG is hard for many people to get used to. We dropped the G for convenience's sake._

"What do you do?"

_My main function is to aid as a combat assistant. I interface with your Omni-tool and armor to observe the current situation and then offer relevant statistical data and combat advice on the field. My secondary function is similar to a personal computer. I can interface with your Omni-tool to bring up its functions through speech._

"Do you have any customization options?"

_Yes. The main customization options involve my voice. Would you like to change it?_

Should I change it? I mean the voice isn't too bad. Unless... let's see. "Yes I would."

_What would you like to change it to?_

"Do you have JARVIS from the old Iron-Man movies?"

_Searching... Yes. That voice option is available. Change default voice to JARVIS?_

"Hell yes!"

_Changing..._ JARVIS' voice then started in my head. _Voice changed. How can I be of assistance today Mr. O'Connor?_

Ok, that's awesome. I feel like Tony freaking Stark now. "Yes, NIC. Contact Commander Shepard for me please."

_Certainly. Dialing now._

The noise of a phone ringing sounded in my ear. It's kinda like a built in blue-tooth. Which is awesome. Makes it so I don't look like a raging tool with the headset clipped to my ear.

Shepard picks up. "Corporal? Everything alright?"

"Yea, I'm fine. Just testing out this new implant and you're the only contact I have... besides my network of course," Quick cover up. That was close. "But now that you mention it, yes. Do you happen to have Liara's contact info?"

"No, but she is standing right here. I'm helping her pick out some armor from our reserves for tomorrow's mission. Why?"

"I was gonna see if she was up to helping me out with getting a handle on this whole biotic business. I have no idea where to start."

Liara's voice then replaced Shepard's. "Certainly Rick. I will be there as soon as I am able."

"Thanks Liara, I'll see you in a while then."

_Connection terminated. Is there anything else I can do for you right now sir?_

_ "_No, I'm good for now NIC. Thanks." Guess I'll just lay here and wait for Liara. It also gives me some time to think...

* * *

**A/N: Ok, well I hoped you enjoyed the chapter. I had fun writing it. I always thought the Normandy in one was too serious, and Rick is just about anything but serious, which resulted in the whole mess hall scene. Rick's armor was always gonna be repaired after the scuffle on Therum, and I never quite accounted for his lack of clothing until I started adding some details to it. Rick is an extension of myself, and I'd like to think that I'd totally ham it up if I was stuck in that situation. I am a master at making things way more awkward than they should be after all. I hope it didn't feel too outta place, but if you felt that it did, or you felt it was really good, you can always lemme know by posting a review. Next chapter's gonna be some crew interaction, and then to Feros!**

**Review Response Time!**

**FtDLulz: Glad you've been enjoying the story. Alway appreciate knowing people are taking the time to review every now and then.**

**Jim: Thanks for leaving a review, and I'm glad you enjoy it. I'm trying not to do just a retelling of the story with Rick in it, and apparently the little things I've been adding are helping a lot. The positive comments definitely help with the confidence level while I'm writing this.**

**CuHnadian: First off, thanks for the faithful reviews because they definitely help me improve for the next chapter, and I'm glad the little things I'm adding are good. Liara romance? Well, it's a little early to tell... *Rick does a little awkward shuffle around* I mean Rick just met her, he doesn't even know her, she's supposed to have feelings for Shepard, and he's not about to get in the way of that... But I guess anything is possible. Guess we'll find out, aha.**

** As for the biotic red flag, it's definitely been a thing I've put a lot of thought into. Back when I was considering even writing this story, I asked Herr Wozzeck for advice about it and his main point was just to make something so it wouldn't make Rick a Gary Stu. That coupled with the advice from you about it got me thinking about how to do it properly and I have a few things planned that should make it work well (hopefully). Let's just say there's gonna be a few interesting developments with his biotics...**

**That's it from me. Rfalzar, out.**


	10. Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Little Talks

"Liara... I'm not feeling anything."

"Be patient. You cannot expect to get it on your first try."

"But I've done it before. I mean, I didn't even mean to do it last time."

"Yes, but from what I understand it was an accident. Concentrate."

I sighed. Biotic training was a lot more difficult than I originally thought it was gonna be. Yea, I knew it'd be hard work, but I didn't think it'd be this hard just to even figure out how to flare my biotics. Double sigh.

"Is there something on your mind Rick?"

"Yea..."

"I know it sounds difficult but you must clear your mind of all thought in order to do this. Relax."

Liara arrived in my room about thirty minutes after our conversation in order to help me figure out what to do with this whole biotics thing. Since then, we've been sitting on the bed meditating. Well thats a lie. She was a meditating with a blue biotic aura surrounding her. I was just kinda sitting there and failing miserably at getting a biotic aura going. Apparently this was some sort of time-tested Asari technique that her mother had used to teach her in order to control her own biotics.

"Yea, well it's a lot easier said than done. Even when there's nothing on my mind there's still something on mind. If that makes any sense."

"What are you thinking of then?"

"Well, when I think of nothing I just picture blackness. Nothingness. Like space without the stars. But I'm still actively thinking about it. I can't clear my mind," I said with a hint of frustration.

"It takes some time to be able to properly perform it, and even longer to master it," she replied calmly, still in her meditative state.

"Liara, I appreciate you helping me and all that, but time is the one thing we don't have right now. The sooner I can use these biotics, the sooner I can be of more use to this mission. After what happened when we came to get you, I'm more of a liability than anything."

"It doesn't seem like anybody else feels that way. I for one told you how thankful I was for you saving me from the Krogan, and Shepard wouldn't want you on this next mission if she didn't think you were doing a competent job," she replied while still in her meditative state.

"I guess. I don't know. My point still stands. I can be more useful."

"I think I understand. Perhaps you are looking at this exercise the wrong way. This is just a way to get in contact with your abilities. Even if you succeed in this, the chances that you will be able to use them on the field of battle are unlikely."

"So this isn't even gonna help me?!"

"It will. In time. I believe it was one of your own philosophers who stated that 'one must first learn to walk before they can run.'"

I smirked at that. "Reading up on our culture I see?"

"You were asleep for a very long time. As was everyone else."

"You didn't relax after that mission? I mean you were stuck in a bubble for who knows how long."

"No I did, but after years of sleepless nights in college and in dig sites, I'm used to getting less sleep than most. I decided to put the time to use and learn about the species who built the ship I would be staying on for a while. But back to this. Clear your mind. Talking is not helping."

"I'm still getting nothing Liara. It's really hard for me to personally clear my mind."

"Perhaps we should try a different approach," she said while opening her eyes to look at me. "What do you know about biotics?"

"Basics really," I said with a shrug. "You can distort space and time with it. Asari all have the ability but some are more gifted than others. Every other race has to be exposed to element zero in the womb in order to accidentally get it, and even then it's rare. In utero eezo exposure usually results in incurable tumors and other diseases."

"All true. But what do you know about how they work? How are we able to manipulate space and time."

I thought about it for a second and gave her my best answer.

"I have no clue," I said with a nod of my head.

She smiled a little. "So you know that there are biotic nodes in your body, correct?" I nodded. "We manipulate time and space with those. The nodes contain trace amounts of element zero. Through this, we are able to use the mass effect fields that surround us and forge them into something we control. Think of it like a mass relay only on a much smaller scale."

Well that's good to know. "So how does clearing my mind help with this?"

"It should help you focus on the fields surrounding you, but it obviously isn't working with you. Which is why I was going to suggest a different approach."

"Which is...?"

"Don't focus on your thoughts. For me, clearing my mind with meditation lets me clearly detect the fields surrounding me, but we aren't the same. Try focusing on your surroundings instead. Try becoming aware of everything around you. Eventually you will notice something different amongst it. Once you find it, focus on it. That should let you at least get a biotic aura going."

"Well, it's worth a shot."

I sat there and took a deep breath, trying to focus on everything around me. I was acutely aware of every single thing in the room. The bed, the chairs, the slight humming from the Normandy's engine, Liara. But there was very little to notice in a small metal box. Maybe if I was sitting in a field somewhere there'd be more to see or feel, but this is a room in a ship. Not much going on here... Forty five minutes later, and there's still not much going on in here.

"Anything yet?" Liara asked.

"Not at all," I replied with a frustrated sigh.

"Give it some time. Focus some more. Be patient."

"Humans, aren't exactly the most patient of species. We don't have the luxury of time on our side like some others, Liara. I don't have a millenia to master this shit," I said a bit heatedly.

She was meditating, but a slight frown came upon her face.

Maybe that was a bit far.

"Look, sorry, I didn't mean to bring anything like that up, it's just frustrating... Usually I'm a fast learner, but this isn't working out for me."

"I understand. I was the same way when my mother taught me how to do this. It will come to you eventually. I may not know you all too well, but I believe that you can do this."

That caused me to pause and look at her. It kind of threw me off guard. I rarely believe in myself, but somebody I just met does? Can't help but admire that about a person. Well, now I have two people I have to not disappoint. I have to get this down now.

While I looked at my teacher, I couldn't help but pay special attention to the little biotic wisps that were coming off of her. Despite being dangerous, biotics are fascinating. But I wasn't just looking at them; I was admiring them and they way they came off of her. It was like I could feel them at the same time. The longer I stared at them, the more I began to notice them, and the ones around me and throughout the room.

Holy shit. I think I'm finally onto something. I began to focus on them more, feeling something kind of click in my body as I did so. I don't know what it was, but it was kind of like I felt the stuff around me more, and I just kind of new how to manipulate it, or focus it at the very least. A biotic aura slowly formed around me. But it was black?

"Hey Liara?"

"Yes?"

"I think I finally got it, but something might be wrong?"

"How so?" she asked while opening her eyes. Her jaw then dropped a little bit and a confused look set in on her face. "Goddess..."

"Yea... is this bad? I feel like black biotics are bad..." I asked while pointing to myself.

"W-Well I've certainly never encountered this before... But I don't feel anything wrong with your aura. It feels... different, but not in a bad way. I'm not sure how to explain it. Perhaps it has something to do with the unique onset of your abilities?"

"I have no idea. But let's go with that. Wrex also mentioned something about feeling a strange biotic aura down on Therum."

"I would see why... Most feel the same, but yours is definitely different. But you've finally been able to bring up a biotic aura. Drop it, and then do it again."

I complied. It was much easier to do it a second time. I already knew what it felt like, so it was simply a matter of focusing it around me.

"Very good! I told you that you could do it."

"Thanks Liara. Honestly I think it was that statement that made me do it. I ended up seeing your aura and it went from there I guess."

"Good. Unfortunately this was the easy part..."

"Wait, what?"

"Yes... Meditation is the perfect set of circumstances for you to focus on your biotics: you aren't moving, you are trying to focus solely on the biotics... Real life situations aren't that ideal. You have much more going on around you. The next step will focus on that. For now just keep practicing what you have so far. We will start training again after the next mission, assuming both of us are up for it."

"I'm 100% down for that. So are we done for today?"

"I think so..." She then smiled sheepishly. "I may have underestimated how tired I really was, and keeping up the biotics for a long period of time may have made it worse. I think I will go lay down." She got off the bed and started walking towards the door.

"See ya before debrief tomorrow, Liara," I said with a little wave.

She smiled and nodded as she went through the door.

Well... now what do I do? I think I'm gonna play with the whole biotics things for a bit...

* * *

The game was not exaggerating when they said that biotics eat a whole hell of a lot. It definitely takes a huge toll on the energy reserves, and I was only focusing on getting them to flare up. Not exactly looking forward to seeing what a throw or a warp could do... So after an hour of successfully bringing them up and one incident where I got a little carried away and found myself floating near the ceiling, I got a bunch of food to eat. After the massive meal, I decided to go around the ship and see what everyone was doing. I remembered Wrex wanted to talk to me about something, so I figured I'd see what everyone in the shuttle bay was up to, which was where I was headed now.

...

If this damn elevator decides to actually get down there. I mean come on! It's one damn floor! How fu-

_Ding!_

Of course. As soon as my inner monologue gets heated, it arrives at my destination... Deep breaths, Rick. Deep Breaths...

I took a step outside to see what everybody was up to. I didn't see Garrus, but I heard sounds coming from the Mako, so I assumed he was working on that. Ash was fiddling with somebody's rifle, and Wrex was in his usual spot, but instead of just standing there, he was sitting there with one foot resting on his leg and sharpening a knife. Kinda reminded me of the first time you meet Emile in Reach, only not as psychotic seeing as how he wasn't sharpening it on his armor. Well... He is the one who wanted to speak to me, so hopefully I won't get a newly sharpened knife to the chest for interrupting him? Yea. Let's go with that.

I walked up to him, a bit apprehensively, and stood in front of him.

"Hey Wrex."

"O'Connor," he said without even looking up or stopping what he was doing.

"Whatcha up to?"

He stared at me and ran the blade along the sharpener. Guess that answers my question.

"Gotcha... You wanted to talk with me the other day?"

"Just wanted to congratulate you on taking out a Krogan Battle-master, weak as he may have been. Most humans barely survive an encounter with non-biotics of my kind."

"Well, I kinda got my ass kicked up until that point, and I can't take all the credit..." I said sheepishly.

"Ha! Yea... I saw you get tossed like... how do you humans say? A rag doll?"

My head sagged and I stared at the ground before sighing. "Yep. That would be the correct saying..."

"Yea..." he muttered while giving an extra long run of the knife on the sharpener. "Where'd you learn how to pry off a Krogan's head plate? It's not exactly something we go around telling people."

Ummm... How am I gonna go about this...?

"Well... one of my uncle's friends was a pretty successful bounty hunter. Had his fair share of run-ins with Krogan. Told me a story about one of his close calls and how he only got out because he got a lucky knife under the head plate. I've never done it before, but I was in a pretty desperate situation if you didn't notice..."

"A quick stab in the eye socket woulda killed 'em just the same..."

"Honestly Wrex, with all the adrenaline in that moment, I just kinda acted. I know it's apparently a painful way to go."

"It is."

"Again, sorry."

"Don't be. He deserved it."

"Wait, I thought you didn't know him?"

"I lied," he stated and let silence hang there for a while.

"Gonna tell me why?"

"Cause I knew it'd piss him off."

"How'd you know him?"

"I'd rather not get into it right now..."

"Ok?"

"Just because you proved yourself a little bit doesn't mean I like you anymore than before. Talk to me after the next two missions and maybe I'll have changed my mind."

"_This_ is how you congratulate someone?"

"Poor word choice. Just letting you know you've elevated yourself above your previous pyjak shit status," he said with a chuckle.

"Thanks? I think?" I said with one raised eyebrow. "I'mmm gonna head out now..."

"Mhmm," he grumbled back.

I started walking over to Ashley. Hopefully that conversation won't be as much of a trainwreck... I got about halfway to the gun bench when a deep voice called out from behind me.

"Oh and O'Connor! You even think about doing anything to my headplate and I'll rip off your quads and shove em down your throat."

I stopped and hung my head. He fucking would.

"Humans only have two Wrex!" I hollered back to him before moving on.

"Statement still stands," he said back.

I walked up to Ashley to see what she was up to, and right as I arrived next to her, she turned her head towards me with a smirk on her face.

"Not a good day for you, is it?"

I shook my head and then shrugged. "I've had worse."

"Really?" she asked while folding her arms and raising her brows. "Worse than a Krogan shoving your manhood down your windpipe?"

I stroked my chin and looked towards the ceiling. "You're right, probably not..."

"That's what I thought. If you have a story that can beat that I'd love to hear it."

"Thankfully, I do not. I mean there _was_ that time a Geth hopper tried to put a bullet in my brain at point blank, but you were there for that."

"Now I'm not a guy, but from what I hear, Wrex's punishment might be a little worse in your eyes. Especially from the reaction you had to Chakwas' news about sterilization," she said with an evil smirk.

"Does nobody know the definition of doctor-patient confidentiality around here? Jesus!" I exclaimed while throwing my ars in the air.

"Easy there Corporal, Chakwas didn't tell me anything," she said with a chuckle, trying to calm me down.

"Then how the hell did you find out?"

"Well, let's just say a little birdie with eyes on everything told me..." she said while turning back to the gun she was fixing.

"There's surveillance in the Med-bay?"

"Well... no video surveillance, but there is a mic in there somewhere."

"Who the hell got into that?"

"Well, that's for me to know..." she said while giving my shoulder a light punch, "And you to never find out."

"So what you're saying is you have a creepy person spying on everyone?"

"Well I wouldn't call him or her creepy... but yes."

"But I feel like Shepard is the only one who has access to any of the security footage..."

She scoffed at that. "You think on a ship full of talented individuals there aren't a handful of expert hackers?"

"Good point... who is it?"

"Nope!"

"C'mon Chief, I don't want some pervy person..." for some reason the word pervy made it click in my head. "It's Joker."

"What? No. He's too busy flying this bird to spy on people," she said rather defensively.

"C'mon, he's the only one around here who would do something like that besides some VI that was programmed to do it."

"Nooope. Not confirming or denying anything."

"Whatever... I'll figure it out eventually. What're you working on?"

"Just patching up some guns, making some improvements."

"Yours? Or other peoples'?"

"Both. It's kinda my job as _Gunnery_ Chief," she said with a laugh.

"I thought that was just a title. Not literal."

"Well you're partially right. It is just part of the title, but I love guns. I made it my official unofficial job."

"Well, they say if you love your job it's like you never work a day in your life. At least you found your calling."

"I think it's in my blood," she stated thoughtfully. "The Williams military line goes way back, but I'd rather not get into that right now. Still got some work to do here."

"Right, not a problem. Just out of curiosity, did you do anything to my weapons?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact. Standard vindicators have two problems if they're on anything other than the single shot selection: a bit of kickback and they overheat far too easily. I put a recoil dampener and a heat dispersal unit on it. Lemme know what you think of it after Feros."

"Thanks Chief, I will."

"Now I really need to get back to fixing this. It's apparently the Commander's favorite pistol and it took a round from a Geth back down on Therum. I don't wanna get on her bad side."

"Yea... I completely understand. Well, good luck with all that."

"See ya later Corporal."

Might as well go see what everyone's favorite Turian is up to. Looks like he's still working underneath the Mako. I casually walked over to Garrus to see if he was up for a chat. As I got closer, I realized that it may have not been the best time to converse with the ex C-Sec agent.

"Fucking... Spirits-damned... bullshit..." he muttered from under the vehicle.

"Umm... everything alright down there Garrus?"

"Oh sure! Everything's just awesome! Stupid, robotic, assholes..."

"What?"

"One second!" he yelled. After that I heard a loud thump, followed by an "Ow" and some other expletives. The Turian then rolled out from underneath the Mako, rubbing his head and holding a dismembered Geth arm. He then tossed it in a nearby pile of junk, which I just now realized was filled with assorted Geth parts: hands, an arm or two, feet, flashlight heads, wires, and even half a torso.

"What do you want?" he asked rather irritably.

I looked at him to see the sorry state he was in. He was dressed in some civilian clothing, nothing too fancy, and was covered in various things, making him look like an oil painting: white from Geth blood, black from oil and grease, and a few splotches of blue from some cuts he got.

"Jesus Garrus... what the hell happened to you? Pick a fight with the Mako?"

"No," he stated with a twitch of his madibles, "more like the Mako picked a fight with some Geth, and now I'm trying to fix up all the damage that was caused. Been working on this thing non-stop since you got back from Therum. I mean, Spirits... What the hell was Shepard thinking?"

"Probably that it was them or us? Or the fact that the Mako is a damn tank and can probably be fine running over a handful of Geth?" I said while crossing my arms.

"A handful of... Rick do you see that pile?!" He said pointing a talon towards the dismembered Geth pieces. "There's enough there to make three or four Geth! And there's _still_ more under here!"

"Hey, I wasn't the driver. All I know is that we needed to kill some robots, and as you can see, we did that."

"Well that's what the turret and cannon are for!" he yelled, redirecting his talon to point above him. "Fun fact: if you shoot them, you don't need to run them over."

"Well, you can mention it to the Commander. I'm not," I said with a chuckle.

He sighed. "Yea well whatever. I still have to patch some stuff up. You need anything else?"

"Nah. I was just gonna see if you had some time to talk, but that's obviously not the case."

"Maybe some other time. We might need the Mako on Feros, and it's not up to par yet."

"Yea, well you have fun with that," I chuckled while walking away

He grumbled something and rolled back under the vehicle.

Just as I was about to head to the elevator, I remembered something.

I spun back around and hollered to Garrus. "You gonna use these Geth pieces for anything?"

"No, I was just gonna space the damn things."

"Don't do that. Leave em here. I might have a use for em."

"Whatever..."

I walked over to the drive core where the engineers worked, and saw Tali diligently typing away on some console.

"Hey Tali, You busy?"

"Oh, hi Rick. I'm a little busy right now. Picked up a shift down here to help out with the crew. Then Adams added hours. Not to say I don't enjoy working down here, just wish I had a little time to relax."

"You've been swamped too?"

"Between this and the training I've been doing with Effinger to get combat proficient, I barely have time to sit down."

"Well, if I'm anything to go by, Effinger's training definitely helps. Sure I got the crap kicked outta me down there, but I'm alive right?"

She giggled. "Well, let's hope I do better. With my immune system, I can't afford to get 'the crap kicked outta me' as you said."

"Right... probably not a good thing for a suit rupture."

"No, not at all. Did you need something? I really need to focus on this," she mentioned, indicating the terminal.

Why is everyone always busy? Oh well.

"Right, just thought I'd give you a heads up, but Garrus was fixing the Mako and pulled out a ton of Geth pieces from under it. Thought they might be of use to you with your pilgrimage and all that."

She quit typing to look at me. "Really? What condition are they in?" she asked, a bit of excitement evident in her voice.

I rubbed the back of my neck. "Well, not gonna lie... They're kinda beat up, but I'm sure you might be able to find some kind of use for them."

"Well, thank you. I certainly will give them a look."

"Ok, well, I'll leave you to it then."

"Thanks."

I walked out of engineering, and just kinda stood there. What should I do now? I guess I could go back to my room and do stuff. Or I could go work out. Getting in better shape might help my survival rates. Let's go do that.

* * *

After I changed into my work-out clothes, I went to the gym and started working on my cardio. I'm not a huge fan of stuff like that, but I noticed I was getting winded pretty damn fast on Therum just trying to catch up. Wasn't used to combat running everywhere I went, and I could definitely tell.

I've been in here close to an hour and a half trying to make some improvement. About half-way through that, Shepard and Kaidan came in to work out. Looks like they're exercise buddies? I would've talked to them, but I had NIC stream my playlist directly into my head to listen to music while I was exercising. Couldn't really talk on account of that.

I was just about to finish my work-out and head over to my room and shower when the two Alliance marines started sparring. I couldn't help but be a little impressed with the display they were giving. They were both very proficient in their hand to hand fighting. It seemed like Shepard was a kick-boxer as well as a student of some type of jiujitsu based on her dominating ground and grapple game. Kaidan just seemed like a straight up brawler, but he was adaptive and flexible enough to keep the fight even. If this was a real skirmish, I might've put my money on Kaidan just because of the biotics, but as it was, Shepard seemed to have the advantage. They were trading blows, throwing each other to the mat, grappling and counter-grappling. It was fairly entertaining to watch.

It also got me thinking. Sure I can throw a punch, but if I ever got into an honest to God fight, I'd be royally screwed. Case and point: the Krogan on Therum. Maybe one of them would be willing to teach me?

It was then that they took a break and sat down against the wall to catch their breath. Shepard had her arms wrapped around her knees while Kaidan was basically laying on the ground. Here's my chance.

"NIC, kill the music would you?" I asked while walking over to them.

_Certainly Mr. O'Connor._

"Hey Rook, how you feeling?" Shepard asked as I made it over to them.

"Well certainly better than the whole 'human punching bag' thing I felt like yesterday."

"That bad huh?" Kaidan asked.

"Oh, believe me Kaidan, it wasn't pretty," Shepard replied with a chuckle. "I didn't personally see anything, but I'm pretty sure everybody heard that Krogan hit him."

"Yea, well you should see how he looks. Oh right, you can't. Lava ate him."

"Well, at least you came out alright," Kaidan mentioned. "You ready for Feros in a few hours?"

"Almost. I was gonna head to my room for sleep, but I thought I could ask you guys a favor real quick."

Shepard raised an eyebrow. "Which would be what?"

"Well, I was wondering if one of you two could teach me the finer points of fighting. I mean I can throw a punch, but nothing like the display either of you just had."

"I'd be willing to teach you a few things, but it won't be easy..." Shepard replied. "You think you're up to it?"

"As long as you don't beat me to death, then yea," I said with a laugh.

They both laughed in return. "Good, we'll start after Feros. Chakwas told you to take it easy, and I don't wanna be responsible for re-breaking all your bones."

"Sounds good, Commander. I'll leave you guys to it then. I'm pretty tired."

"See ya," they said in unison.

Time to rest up for the mission tomorrow. Well, more like a few hours, but whatever. It's not tomorrow until I've fallen asleep.

* * *

I woke to the beeping noise of my Omni-tool, yet again. I definitely need to play with the settings on that thing. Beeping just isn't cutting it anymore. Welp... might as well go hop in the shower.

I rose out of bed, grabbed a towel, and walked into the shower. I'm a bit of a zombie when I wake up, so when I say 'walked,' what I really mean is 'shuffled with my eyes half open.' I turned on the water, and stepped inside. I started rubbing my hair to get it wet when I realized there was a problem: No water.

I looked up to the shower head to see that the water was flowing up. Like defying gravity. This might make showering difficult. I turned off the water, threw on my boxers and walked over to the comm unit near the desk in my room.

"Hey Joker, is there something wrong with the artificial gravity or what?"

The only reply I got was harsh static.

"Joker?"

More static. Wonderful. Let's go see if anybody else is having an issue.

I threw on some work-out shorts and a slipped a T-shirt over my head as I walked out the door.

"Yo! Anyobody else having any..." My head finally popped out of the shirt to see the sight before me. "...weird...problems?"

This is definitely NOT the Normandy...

* * *

**A/N: Hey guys, sorry for the super long update period. Between all the stuff I have going on IRL it was kinda hard to write this chapter. Didn't really have the motivation from everything sucking the energy out of me. Not to mention Dead Space 3 eating up a ton of my free time as well. It's kind of addicting, aha. The main reason I didn't get this out as fast as I had hoped was because of some rampant plot bunnies I had for the sequel to this. I really want to do a standalone story with Rick for the two years between 1 and 2, but I don't know if I have enough ideas. I had to iron out some things with that before I could focus on this for some reason. **

**Anyways, hope you enjoyed the chapter, and feel free to leave a review. I love the criticism, whether it's good or bad so don't worry about hurting my feelings.**

**Rain Shigu: Glad you enjoyed the story so far.**

**CuHnadian: Glad the dialogue wasn't just fun for me. And yea, I kinda figured you were just predicting a possible romance, and that was kind of a round about and complicated way of me saying "Possibly" aha.**

**Usually I would end it there, but with the whole Citadel DLC that just came out, I had to say something about it. I myself haven't played all the way through it, but from what I've seen, It looks pretty good. Like I have it downloaded, I just haven't gotten to it. Anyhow, if you don't want any minor spoilers, I SUGGEST YOU STOP READING HERE.**

**I've been a staunch 're-taker' since I originally beat the game over a year ago. I say it like that because re-take was never my favorite term for it. It wasn't ours to re-take. It was BioWare's. We didn't own the game. But they crafted such a fantastic game that each Shepard felt like it belonged to us as an individual, so we wanted to take it and make it what it should've been for our Commander Shepards. I don't support the whole edited ending, the extended cut soothed the burn, but didn't get rid of it. I still firmly believe that we as fans should have had a less bleak ending for our characters, but none of this is really the point. The point is I know a lot of people are upset over not getting an ending they wanted, and as such, won't be playing the new and final DLC, but by doing that, you'll be doing the game a great disservice. The whole thing is well-done, maybe even fan-service, but so was the extended cut. The difference is that this is very well executed, and is the send off the characters we've grown to love deserve. The send off my Shepard deserves. **

**How do I know this? Well I watched my friend play through some of it. She played a Fem-Shep and had romanced Samantha Traynor. At the very end of the DLC, Traynor says "Well, it wasn't what I signed up for, but it's been a good ride." I couldn't find a way to express my feelings any better in regards to this series. I didn't want the ending we were given, but the ride up to that point was amazing. The fact that they could create a game so in depth and make me care about characters so much that I'd write a story about it speaks volumes. I guess my point is that whether or not you're satisfied with how this series went, give it a chance. I'm not saying buy it, but hell, at least watch it on YouTube or something. Give Shepard the send-off he/she deserves.**

**On a more positive note, I do plan on continuing this all the way through to the events of ME3 so I can guarantee every character will eventually get a good send off.**

**Hope you didn't mind the rant. **

**Until next time, Rfalzar out.**


	11. Chapter 10: Somewhere Else

**Chapter 10: Somewhere Else **

Well I mean, this wasn't the Normandy as I knew it of course. Like I could see it... kind of. If this was like Normandy in the beginning of Mass Effect 2. So unless I slept through the Collector attack and my room was completely unscathed somehow, something really fucking weird is going on right now.

About a meter or two from my room is when things got really weird. Up until that point it just looked like the hallway leading to my quarters. After that however the walls kind of disappeared, leaving just a floor and open space. Like legit open space. How am I breathing? Beats me. I still don't know how I made it through space alive last time, so I guess this isn't really new to me.

So... outside equals completely fucked up. Inside my room equals normal. I looked back to make sure my room was still there, and sure enough it was. Well that solves that. I spun around to walk back into my room. Maybe going back to sleep will fix this.

I was just about to walk through the doorway when the door suddenly whooshed shut rather forcefully and a red panel showed up on it. Of course.

Well... I guess that leaves me one way to go. I turned back around and started walking down the strange hallway until I made it to a round platform that just seemed to kind of end. It looked like it could have been part of the Normandy based on the material it was made of, but it obviously wasn't.

It was at that point that I looked up to take in my surroundings. Probably not the best idea considering I was already freaking out pretty hardcore. The sky wasn't just a black color, it was fluctuating; it started black, but then it went to purple, to blue, to light blue, and then back. Then there was shit floating everywhere. I saw chunks of metal from ships maybe, whole ships themselves, prefabs, rock chunks, and air-cars that were just kinda floating around without a concern.

The biggest concern, however, was what was directly above me. A Reaper. Just kinda chilling. But it wasn't exactly as shiny or synthetic as I recall them to look like. This one looked like an organic reaper, if such a thing existed. I noticed another one was just floating off in the distance as well.

I sighed and looked back down, rubbing my face with both hands. "Why can't I ever just have a normal day lately? What the hell is happening?!"

"Perhaps I could be of assistance sir?" said an oddly familiar voice that startled me so badly I jumped up a little and lost balance.

From my new spot on the ground, I looked up to see a middle aged man dressed as a butler.

"Who the hell are you? Why are you here?"

"Why, sir it's me, NIC," he replied casually.

"No. No, no, no," I said while pointing at him. "NIC is in my head. You are clearly right in front of me. So unless we're in my head, which I highly doubt because the last time I checked I didn't dream about acid trips, you're not NIC. Who are you?"

"I'm not entirely sure what to say Mr. O'Connor. I am NIC. My appearance and voice just reflect your default setting for me. Is the JARVIS setting not to your liking?"

Well now that he mentions it, it does kinda make sense that he sounds like that.

"Ok, so lemme get this straight. You're NIC?"

He nodded.

"You're supposed to be in my head."

He nodded again.

"Then where the fuck are we?"

He shrugged.

"Great. So helpful."

"Well, sir, perhaps you are just having a very surreal dream. One where you are sleep-talking, which could explain why I am able to respond to you.

"That... might make sense."

"This doesn't really explain why you can see me however. Databases indicate that most humans pinch themselves or slap themselves to make sure they are dreaming. I'm not entirely sure why because it doesn't make much logical sense, but it may be worth a shot."

"Well it beats any other ideas we have floating around. Heh. Floating around..." I say while glancing at the stuff above me.

"I'm sorry sir?"

"Just talking to myself... Ok, let's see." I pinched myself but nothing happened. Step it up, Rick. I then slapped myself fairly hard, which gave a loud crack. And nothing happened.

"Well, it looks like I'm stuck here for some reason..." I grumbled while rubbing my cheek.

"Yes... I thought so. It was worth trying at least. It could also be that we are in some kind of place where I'm as real as you are? Merely speculation of course seeing as how I have no prior references to go off of. Perhaps it would help if I mentioned that my programming had been altered recently?"

"Umm... yea? You think? Somebody's messing around with the shit in my head and you wait til now to tell me?!"

"Sorry sir, but I myself just noticed it. I cannot tell who altered it, but it seems to be a guide program for a situation such as this. Somebody knew this would happen, but I cannot tell you who."

"So somebody's toying with me?"

"Unfortunately, it would appear so. But I can guide you out of here at the very least."

"Well I can't exactly go back," I said, pointing a thumb backwards towards my room. "Might as well go through this..."

"Excellent sir! Follow me," he mentioned while walking to the edge of the platform.

"Where exactly are we..."

Suddenly all the random rocks and metal chunks flew in front of us and formed a path.

"Oh... that's where we're going."

"Quite so sir."

We walked a bit in silence. I couldn't help but just look at the surroundings. I've never really partook in drugs, but I'm fairly certain that this must be what an acid trip is like. Changing colors, random shit floating everywhere. This has to be a hallucination. Maybe somebody drugged me? I doubt anybody would do that, but it's seriously the only explanation.

"So NIC, where exactly are we going?"

"Just to this platform over here, sir."

I looked up to notice a more solid platform than the rather narrow walkway that we were walking on. It was definitely different from the first one I had set foot on: it started out as a more natural formation with rocks and sand and some water trickling down in places causing tiny streams to form. A massive palm tree stuck out of the right most side near the middle of the roundish floating platform. After the palm tree, the rock and sand gave way to metal, ending in a massive metallic wall with water flowing over it. It looked very familiar, but I don't know where from.

NIC walked over in front of this wall and grabbed a data-pad that was conveniently floating by.

"My altered programming dictates that I give this to you sir..." he said while extending his hand.

I grabbed the data-pad and started reading. _Welcome Mr. O'Connor! It would appear you've made it here without a problem. _Didn't really have a choice mysterious note person. _Introductions must surely be made! But not now. Later. Much later. First... I'd like to play a game. Nothing extravagant or over the top, no, no, no. Just a few questions. Yes or no, one or the other, A or B, black or white. No riddles. Understood? Good! Question number 1: you have a major decision coming in the near future. Well, more like your Commander does. So if you were in her shoes, would you save Ashley Williams or Kaidan Alenko? Simply type your answer below. I look forward to your answer..._

_-O_

That's why this all looked familiar. The sand, water, the damn palm tree. All from Virmire... I looked up to see that the metal had risen up to take the form of Kaidan resting on the bomb, and Ash ducking for cover from Geth. What fucked up test is this?

"So you knew this is why I was here?"

"Yes."

"You didn't say anything because...?"

"Restrictions on my programming."

"And this data-pad just conveniently rolls by with instructions on it?"

"Your guess is as good as mine. My programming parameters do advise you to hold onto that however. There will be more questions."

"Of course... Why make it easy?" I muttered to myself, while pinching the bridge of my nose. Then my mind wandered back to the question. Who would I pick? I usually saved Ash. Just kinda did, not sure why. But I'm not just playing a game anymore. These are real people. I can't just condemn somebody to death. Somebody who I've actually grown to know as a person. Sure I might not be super close to either of them, but they're both friends as far as I'm concerned. Who could I pick...? Ultimately it's not my decision, it's Shepard's. But that doesn't mean I don't have to try and change it...

I made up my mind. 'Neither' I typed in to the data-pad. I had some time to think of a way to save everyone before we got to Virmire and I was gonna do that if I could. Maybe I could use my whole 'Spy Network' to my advantage.

The word disappeared and after a few minutes, a new message appeared. _Interesting. You were told to choose between A and B and yet you chose C. Do you do things like this often? Regardless, you may continue._

Well... fuck you too.

Suddenly, the floor started shifting and revealed a ramp that lead downward. NIC hopped down on the newly revealed path.

"If you'd just follow me, sir, I believe the next question spot is up this way."

"Again, don't really have a choice here NIC..."

"It would appear so."

I followed NIC, data-pad in hand, and watched as the path formed in front of us. It was still made out of some synthetic material, but it looked like Geth parts were sticking out here and there.

"So what purpose do these questions serve?"

"I couldn't tell you sir. Only the person asking them would be able to, and-"

"And you don't know who that is. I remember..."

"Precisely."

We walked a bit more in silence, giving me the opportunity to take in the rather odd scenery. Once you get past the whole freak out stage, its actually kinda peaceful in its own disorganized and chaotic way. If that makes sense? I mean, just watching the disorganized random pieces of ships, stars, rock, and Reapers float around without any pattern or care in the world was kind of peaceful in a messed up way. I know, I'm weird. Why do I keep talking to myself?

"Sir, if I may make a suggestion?" NIC asks, breaking me out of my thoughts. "Maybe you'd get more answers by asking the data-pad. It seems to be responding to whatever you type into it."

"Now why didn't I think of that?"

"Perhaps your mind was preoccupied on the strange circumstance you appear to be in."

"True. Speaking of which NIC, what exactly are you seeing right now?"

"Well, I am just a VI. All I see is an electric signal that I've been programmed to follow. Why do you ask?"

"Just curious if this was as fucked up for you as it was for me."

"Well, it's certainly not normal, but it would not be classified as 'fucked up,'" he added an air quote to this with his hands, "as you so eloquently stated."

"I'm not good with expressing my emotions. Deal with it," I replied with a shrug.

"Very well sir. It would appear as if we've arrived."

"Apparently so," I agreed as I took in my new surroundings. This one looked more... well man-made for lack of a better term. No more rock, no more Geth pieces, just the metal like you'd see on any space station or ship with a bit of distortion. Again there was a large wall blocking our path forward. NIC took his place in front of the wall and faced me.

The data-pad pinged and a new message appeared. _It would appear as if you've made it to the next area. Good. This question is also very similar to the last. I know of your situation and 'unique' circumstances in this universe. You have the ability to change things as you see fit. According to the timeline that you know, your Commander is scheduled to die. Do you save her? Or do you leave her to her fate?_

_-O_

That... is a great question. I honestly don't know what I would do. I never even thought that far ahead. If I save her, it could alter the timeline and screw everything up, but on the other hand, just letting her die would cause a ton of turmoil for everybody whoever knew her. Being in this universe is gonna prove more confusing than I originally thought. Hmmm... I guess I don't really have a choice.

'Leave it be,' I typed into the data-pad. Cerberus has to rebuild her if we plan on stopping the Collectors later.

It faded away and a new message took its place. _Interesting. You may proceed._

The left side of the wall slid over and a new path formed itself in front of us. NIC led the way yet again. The path was much more narrow this time around. It had been fine to walk on before, but this one was making me nervous. So naturally right as I think that, my foot slips and I almost fall over the edge. I leaned the other direction and waved my arms a bit to regain my balance. Once I was safely back on the perilous path, I sighed in relief.

"Careful sir," Jarvis advised as we made our way forward again. "I wouldn't advise falling off of this. I'm not quite sure what would happen, but all simulations point to an unpleasant experience."

"You don't say? I thought falling endlessly through a void would be rather interesting..."

"Ah, sarcasm. Good one sir. The highest form of all comedy."

"You're kind of a prick, you know that?"

"Well you did pick my personality, sir."

"That's because I thought your voice was cool. I didn't know this was a side-effect."

"Maybe if you had read through the manual on the omni-tool you would-"

"Ain't nobody got time for that NIC. We almost there?"

The VI sighed. Apparently they can do that. "Yes, it would appear so."

We stepped onto another platform, this one taking the appearance of a distorted version of Josh's lab from the day that I was sent here. Cause that's exactly what I wanted to be reminded of: the day my life took an 'interesting' spin. The data-pad pinged yet again.

_As I mentioned before, I am very much aware of the circumstances that brought you here. _Well, considering I'm probably hallucinating this I probably shouldn't worry. _I am very much real. In fact you could say I'm always around you. But I digress, your secret is safe with me for now... Assuming you had the chance to go back to your original life, would you take it? Yes or no?_

_-O_

Well that's certainly an odd question to ask. Then again, all of these have been. Right now? Yea, I'd probably take that chance. But he didn't specify when. For all I know he could be talking about ten years from now, assuming I live that long. In that case no. I'd have probably made a life here already, and I wouldn't wanna open any old wounds when I just suddenly show up back in my own time and universe.

'I don't know,' I type in. 'I guess that would all depend on the circumstances leading up to it.' The message disappeared.

_It would seem that following instructions is not your strong suit, is it? Oh well. Well that concludes that portion. No more mundane questions. No more walking. I still have questions for you of course, but none like before. Remember when I said no riddles? I lied. This one is fairly simple if you've been paying any sort of attention today, and I'm feeling generous so I'll even give you three chances! Aren't you the lucky one? How have I been observing you?_

_-O_

'Well, this is all in my mind, so you're somehow in my head?'

_NOPE! I can assure you that everything around you is very much real and not a hallucination. Two more chances._

Why do things have to keep getting stranger. He's obviously just screwing with my mind. No way in hell is all of this real. Whatever, moving on.

'NIC then. You altered his programming so you're obviously viewing this through him.'

_Wrong again Mr. O'Connor. As NIC told you earlier, he doesn't see the same things you do. I thought you were better than this... Tsk, tsk, tsk. Last chance._

"NIC, you don't happen to know how this psycho is watching me do you? Honestly the whole thing's a bit creepy."

"Unfortunately no sir, I cannot offer any help on this subject."

"Worth a shot..." I muttered. He said it was simple if I payed any attention to what was going on. Considering everything in this place is random as hell, it's not very helpful.

I clasped my hands together behind my neck and looked up. Why does this always have to be me. And why the hell is that Reaper still above me? As if I didn't have enough on my mind, this massive death machine seemed to be following me.

I threw my arms out to the side. "Go away! Stop following me you giant piece of-"

Wait. That might actually be it. This thing has been following me this whole time! God, I hate riddles.

'The massive Reaper thing above me?'

_Excellent! You continue to surprise me. Now for the final test. This may go against all your instincts, but your final chore is to figure out where I am. The data-pad won't help on this I'm afraid. I actually require your presence for this one. I look forward to seeing if you find me._

_-O_

"Getting reeeaaal sick of your games 'O'..." I mutter to myself. Where the hell is this asshole? I don't like it when people toy with me, and I'm starting to hate everything about this place. I just want out. I want to go back to normal, well as normal as things can be.

I started pacing as I looked around at the path that lead me here. None of those were where I was supposed to go apparently. I don't see any hidden pathways or anything branching off around them.

"Sir, you may want to be careful, you're pacing awfully close to the edge. As I stated earlier, that would be bad," NIC cautioned.

"And as I stated earlier: No shit."

"Just trying to lend my assistance, sir."

"I know, it's just this is kinda frustrating. Falling off is obviously bad...for me... Or is it?"

"I'm sorry sir?" NIC asked with an arched eyebrow.

"It makes sense!" I exclaim. "He mentioned earlier that he's all around me. He also said that this answer would go against all my instincts. I think I have to go into this void."

"Again sir, I would not do that."

"I don't really have any other options here, unless you know something, and every time I ask you, you say you don't. So I'm doing it."

I walked over to the edge, mentally preparing myself, and hoping I was correct. These riddles seemed a bit too easy, but I'm not complaining. Maybe that's part of the plan. You can do this Rick, it's as easy as jumping. Just do it. On three. One. Two. Three...

Ok maybe not so easy. One...two...three... I closed my eyes and jerked forward slightly, but still didn't make the leap.

"NIC, can I get some help here."

"Afraid of heights sir?" he asked as he walked over.

"No. Doesn't mean that falling to my death is my idea of a good time though. I'm not afraid of knives, but that doesn't mean I want to get stabbed by one."

"I see," he stated from next to me.

"Ok, I'm ready on thr-" I didn't get to finish that sentence as a shove knocked me off balance and sent me tumbling off the ledge.

"I WAS GONNA SAY ON THREE YOU SON OF A BITCH!" I yelled as I fell below the the platform.

"APOLOGIES SIR!" he hollered back.

I didn't reply. I just extended a certain finger and pointed it at him. I fell past all the floating debris, and after a minute there no longer was any. The sky also ceased to fluctuate, and it remained a light blue color. Eventually it was me just falling. I'm really hoping I didn't mess up and fall forever or something.

Soon after, it no longer felt like I was falling. Didn't feel like I was standing, but no longer falling either. Odd.

Suddenly a figure cloaked in shadows materialized in front of me. From what I could tell, he seemed humanoid. Any other details were impossible to make out, however, as the shadows basically enveloped him. They came off in tiny wispy patterns, but never revealed what was underneath.

"Congratulations Rick," said a voice that made my hair stand on end. It's not that it was scary, it just had a presence about it. His tone also seemed to give off an incredibly arrogant air. I couldn't quite understand why, but this being's voice alone was enough to unsettle me.

"It would appear you've passed my little test. I find your answers to my tests intriguing. Therefore, that proves your worthy."

"Worthy of what? Who the hell-"

"Ah, ah! No talking," he interrupted. "Only I get to speak right now. I will answer your questions later. I will surely contact you in the future. All you need to know right now is that I will send you back to where you were. Right after I congratulate you of course."

His left arm extended, revealing a pale hand with five fingers.. Like ghostly pale. I didn't really want to touch it, but I really had no choice. I extended my left hand as well and grasped his. A sudden painful and burning sensation made itself known on the back of my hand, almost as if somebody had branded it. I grit my teeth to keep myself from yelling.

"Congrats..." he whispered eerily as my vision went black.

* * *

The next thing I know, I'm jolting upright in my bed, a layer of sweat covering my body. Holy shit. There is no way in hell that was just a normal dream. Is everything back to normal?

I leapt out of bed and ran to the sink in the bathroom. I turned the water on, and it flowed downward like it was supposed to. I then ran over to the Comm unit in my room and paged Joker.

"Hey Corporal. Something I can help ya with?"

Oh thank God. It looks like everything is normal again. "Uh... Yea. How, uh, far are we from Feros?

"We'll be there shortly. Debrief with the Commander is in thirty. Better get ready."

"Thanks Joker. I'll talk to you later."

"Alright."

Well... might as well get ready. I hopped in the shower and let the warm water run over me. It felt incredibly relaxing after the ordeal I just went through. I put my hands on the wall and leaned against it while I looked down towards the floor.

"NIC, that did just happen, right?"

_I'm sorry sir?_

_ "_That whole fucked up dream. You were there right?"

_I'm sorry sir, I do not recall. I remember having an extensive and rather strange conversation with you very recently, but I do not remember any details._

Great. The one thing that can verify my sanity has apparently had its memory wiped. Fuck this day.

I then looked up at the wall I was supporting myself on and noticed my hands. Well, my left one specifically. What I saw startled me. It was a tattoo. That I never had before. I've never gotten a tattoo before. It was some odd pattern. A solid circle in the center of my hand, surrounded by a circle that wasn't fully closed. From this circle, pointed lines extended diagonally, a short one extending from the bottom left, and a longer one from the upper right. On both sides of that line, odd curved lines with jagged ends were present.

That certainly explains the burning sensation. What the hell was this symbol? And, again, why me? Why is it always me? How am I going to explain this tattoo to everybody? It's not exactly like I can hide it easily, and I'm not a glove person.

I groaned and let my head lightly hit the wall. This was not a great start to the day. I have no answers for this. That solves this problem. I'm putting it on the back burner until I get some from whoever the hell that was in my dream. I have more important things to worry about, like Feros. But at this rate I wouldn't be surprised if I got hit by a damn meteor while I was there.

I just jinxed myself again didn't I?

* * *

**A/N: Hey guys, Surprised? Me too. I got this chapter out relatively fast. The amount of people who started following this or favorited it after last chapter kinda gave me the motivation to knock this one out. I know I said Feros started this chapter, but I felt it was better to cut it off here than continue on. Regardless, I hope you enjoyed it. I also hope I explained the tattoo in a way that you can visualize it well. I can't just come right out and say what it is because it ruins the mystery a bit, but feel free to leave your thoughts in a review or ask in a PM. Who knows, I may feel generous and leave some hints.**

**That's it for today.**

**Rain Shigu: Sorry for the cliffhanger, but it did its job and piqued your interest. Hope this chapter satisfied that.**

**CuHnadian: Really glad you think the characters are fairly accurate. That's a pretty huge concern for me when I'm writing this, so I'm glad I'm on the right path.**

**Rfalzar out. **


	12. Author's Note

Hey guys, I know it's been a really long time since I posted anything, but don't worry, I haven't given up on this story. Finals kinda put this thing on hold back in May and since then, I've been dealing with a non-stop work schedule and a ton of personal issues on top of trying to get everything ready for my Fall semester. Starting clinicals tends to be a bit of a big deal, aha.

Things finally slowed down a bit, so I should be able to post in the near future if everything stays this way. It may take some time though. Coming back to a story a few months down the road tends to be coupled with pretty bad writer's block. I've tried posting the chapter I'm working on multiple times, but just couldn't do it because I wasn't satisfied with it (multiple rewrites included...).

Anyhow, all I ask is that if you've waited this long, please be patient just a little longer. I got some twists, turns, and interesting events that should make up for it.

Rfalzar, out.


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